From Startup to Acquisition: PLENO’s Journey in Autonomous Drones and Space Tech
Nura of PLENO discusses drone autonomy, AI in space tech, startup growth, and lessons from acquisition in the European defense and aerospace sector.
Drones are getting smarter, and the world of space tech is evolving faster than ever. PLENO, a Berlin-based startup focused on AI-driven autonomy for drones, quickly stood out with its unique use of deep reinforcement learning to train autonomous agents in simulation. That fresh approach helped the company secure urgent contracts in Europe and eventually led to its acquisition.
We talked with Nura (Ngurah Linggih), PLENO’s co-founder, to hear how the company got started, what made their technology unique, and how they navigated the journey from a small startup to being acquired.
Along the way, he shares insights for founders, investors, and anyone curious about the future of drones and AI in Europe. Here’s how it all began:
How did PLENO get started in autonomous systems for drones and space tech?
PLENO started early last year. Initially, my co-founder and I were exploring different ideas, mostly around satellite geospatial analysis. Then we found a Ukrainian company that needed a solution to be implemented very fast, an autonomous software solution for their drone. And like any other tech startup, we said yes, we believe that our expertise with computer vision gives us a strong conviction that we can do it. That’s how we all started. What excites me about working in this field is not just the business value, but also the speed—you always see something new in space every few weeks or months.
Did you have prior experience in this sector?
My background is more of a generalist, a software product manager, focusing on the business side. However, my co-founder is an AI Engineer who has built a successful software agency and spent some years in the German armed forces. So he knows the potential applications of AI in drone and defence tech. It’s a perfect match, and I trust him completely in the technical direction.
Innovation really takes off when business savvy meets deep technical expertise—a combination that turns bold ideas into working solutions.
What were PLENO’s main products and how did they work?
Our product is not there anymore since we got acquired, but essentially we were building an autonomous agent. We trained autonomous systems in a simulation environment—similar to how Waymo or Tesla trains autonomous cars. You cannot just go out on the road—or in our case, fly drones in reality—so simulation allows faster iterations and higher accuracy.
What made your approach unique compared to others in the market?
Most others use pre-trained models with a specific set of rules for tracking, detection, landing, and navigation. We went the path of deep reinforcement learning, meaning the agent learns from experience.
PLENO stood out by teaching drones to learn on their own in simulations instead of using pre-made models. This approach let them experiment faster, be more accurate, and bring something new to a crowded market.
It flies around the simulation, figures out what it needs to do, and improves over time. This approach exists in other industries, but we hadn’t seen it applied to drones yet. Being newcomers gave us a fresh perspective.
How did PLENO secure its first contracts?
What we learned, especially in Europe right now, is that demand is just so high in this space. But the biggest difficulty is actually customization. How can you customize your software, or in this case autonomous navigation, to the specific hardware or drones that the customer is using? There’s not an endless number of options, but there are definitely a lot of tweaks and adjustments required.
Many other companies spend a lot of time going through loops of customization, training, and testing. We were doing the same work, but we were able to move faster, which helped us secure urgent contracts even while fundraising.
By quickly adapting their software to different hardware, the team won urgent European contracts, showing that speed and flexibility are key in drone autonomy.
What made PLENO attractive for acquisition?
The first thing was the team. My co-founder Nino is a perfect fit for what the acquiring company is looking for, in terms of skills, experience, and definitely the attitude required to build amazing thins in Defence Tech.
At the same time, the technology we were building also fit directly into their roadmap. So it was both the team and the tech. The process itself was very fast, and now my co-founder is there as Director of AI, leading a big team and building what we were aiming for, just on a much bigger scale. That’s very exciting for him.
What are the pros and cons of joining a larger company versus running your own startup?
There are tons of requirements and regulations in Defence Tech, and many of the challenges are not really about the technology but about licenses and all the non-technical aspects needed to even enter the market. For small teams, these hurdles can be huge.
The benefit of joining a bigger company is that they already have the structures and experts in place to handle this.
On the con side, it’s moving away from the “Baby” that you put all your time and effort into. For personal reasons, I decided not to join the acquiring company and am exploring something new, still within the drones & space sector.
Navigating defense tech as a small startup is tough due to regulatory and operational hurdles, and while joining a larger company can help, it also means stepping away from the venture you’ve built.
How do you see autonomy and defense tech evolving in Europe over the next five years?
I think what I’m seeing is, of course, biased from Europe. Right now, there’s more and more funding flowing, and more teams are open to building in this space. Before, not everyone wanted to work on this, but now the push is definitely there.
In terms of implementation, as you might have seen, it probably takes some time—because of openness to using the newest autonomous solutions, and also due to regulation in some industries. So adoption will take time, but the technology push is strong.
What’s even more exciting is the hardware side. Compute power is getting so much better, cheaper, and smaller. That’s a huge upside for the industry.
From an investor's perspective, what should they look for in startups in drone autonomy and defense AI?
I think, first of all, it’s not easy for investors who are just dipping their toes into this industry. It’s quite new, and many investors we met ended up saying they actually couldn’t invest because it’s dual-use technology—there’s complexity on both sides of that spectrum. So the first thing investors need to do is decide if they actually want to enter this field and they know what they are into in the long run
Second, we got a lot of questions about team and technology. This space is very new, so the technology is hard to validate early. Maybe in three to five years, once there’s proven success, it’ll be easier. Right now, many founders are still experimenting and tinkering.
That’s why, from an investor perspective, it’s really about the potential of the founders and the team. No matter what technology they’re building today, if they’re the right people, they can execute in defense tech as well. That’s something we’ve learned talking to peers in the industry—raising funding here is often more about the team and their potential than, say, having 10 years of military experience. And honestly, who really has that in Europe if you’re a tech person?
In this space, it’s less about the tech today and more about the team’s potential to execute—investors need to bet on the people, not just the product.
What is your key takeaway for founders in this sector?
Be flexible, pivot quickly, and talk to the right people. Conferences and networking are incredibly helpful—you learn faster than just working in the lab. Build in public and seek feedback, good or bad. That feedback is critical to improving your product and strategy. Also, having the right advisors and support network can open doors and help navigate challenges.
What are you currently working on and open to?
I’m currently spending some time to travel while working on several consulting projects for European drone companies. I’m open to helping startups and other drone-related businesses based on my experience building PLENO.
Connect with Nura on LinkedIn.