The young Munich-based company wants to produce up to 3,000 drones per month in the future. A cooperation with the defense company KNDS in the area of mobile drone defense is also planned.
Tytan wants to produce up to 3,000 interceptor drones per month in Munich-Aubing, thereby increasing capacity tenfold.
The company invested around ten million euros in the new facility, which will initially employ 60 people.
Tytan is starting a cooperation with the defense company KNDS to develop a mobile drone defense platform based on the Dingo vehicle.
The start-up uses Ukrainian experience and cooperates with companies there.
Munich, Berlin. The Munich start-up Tytan Technologies wants to produce up to 3,000 interceptor drones per month in a new factory in Bavaria. “We are building the largest industrial production facility for autonomous interceptor drones in all of Western Europe,” Balás Nagy, who founded the company together with Batuhan Yumurtaci, told Handelsblatt.
The new production facility in Munich-Aubing is to be ceremoniously opened on Monday in the presence of Federal Minister of Economics Katherina Reiche (CDU) and the Bavarian Prime Minister Markus Söder (CSU). This means the company is increasing its previous production capacity tenfold.
The two Tytan founders won a hackathon in Kiev less than three years ago, where they presented an antidote to the Shahed drones used on a massive scale by Russia. Since then, the company has specialized in the development and production of interceptor drones and the associated software.
His AI-controlled drones Eos and Metis cause enemy drones to crash due to the force of the impact. The Bundeswehr has commissioned the young company to protect its properties from drone attacks.
The experience from Ukraine shows that in an emergency, inexpensive drone interception systems in large numbers are important, said Nagy. “The Bundeswehr doesn’t have that yet.” Many air defense systems that were ordered came from a different era and only arrived at the end of the decade.
Russia currently produces 5,500 to 6,000 attack drones per month and used more than 54,000 of them against Ukraine last year alone. The aim is to overwhelm the Ukrainian air defense through sheer mass. It is therefore necessary to be able to quickly scale the production of interceptor drones if necessary.
In Munich-Aubing, around 60 employees will initially work in shifts. The number of employees can be increased to up to 100. For every position there are around three more with suppliers from abroad. Tytan has invested around ten million euros in the system. The money comes exclusively from investors in Europe; Tytan relies solely on NATO countries for its supply chain.
But Ukraine also teaches that the innovation cycles in drone technology are extremely short. “The threat posed by drones is constantly changing, so we also have to constantly evolve,” says Nagy. In order to also have an antidote against the jet-powered Shahed drones that fly at high speeds and at high altitudes, Tytan developed the Hyperion. The interceptor drone is equipped with a rocket booster that quickly increases its altitude and speed.
On Monday, the company will also present a new cooperation with the German-French arms company KNDS. Based on the KNDS protected vehicle Dingo, both companies have developed a new mobile drone defense platform. Series production is scheduled to begin at the beginning of next year. Tytan also worked with Mercedes to develop a mobile drone defense system based on the G-Class, which was presented in the summer. The Bundeswehr has ordered a small number of them.
When further developing its products, the company also relies on the experiences from Ukraine, where it continues to be active. "We cooperate closely with Ukrainian companies. That is very important to us," says Nagy. Joint ventures with Ukrainian companies are also not fundamentally ruled out for Tytan.
Many German drone or software manufacturers such as Quantum Systems, Auterion and Wingcopter have founded joint ventures with Ukrainian companies. During the recent visit of Chancellor Friedrich Merz (CDU) and Economics Minister Reiche to Kiev at the beginning of October alone, 14 bilateral collaborations with a total value of 6.6 billion euros were agreed.
However, you have to carefully weigh up the advantages and disadvantages before committing to a possible joint venture, says Tytan founder Nagy. A partnership in which certain rights such as intellectual property lie in Ukraine could make work in the EU and NATO countries more difficult.
