Florian Seibel's first customers were not soldiers. They were people who wanted to look at fields and farms from above. The former Bundeswehr helicopter pilot, who flew military aircraft and worked as a researcher at the University of the Bundeswehr in Munich, had set out in 2015 to build small drones for civilian use.
The seed was a patent. Seibel and a colleague had patented a drone prototype while he was working on his doctorate. Then he did something many academics fear: he left the PhD behind and founded Quantum Systems in January 2015. His service background gave him credibility with the aircraft but also an itch about how unmanned systems get built and bought.
The early years were modest. The first Trinity prototype flew in 2016, the Tron eVTOL fixed-wing system followed in 2017, and production of Trinity began in 2018. In a 2018 interview with DroneBelow, Seibel offered a founder's mantra: what can go wrong will go wrong. For years it was a plain engineering company, with civilian customers and a modest base of backers that eventually included HV Capital, Project A and Thiel Capital.
The turn came from outside. After Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine, European armies suddenly wanted small, reliable, fast-to-field drones. The company moved from agriculture toward defense. In October 2022 the first Vector went to the Dutch Ministry of Defence. In 2024 Australia selected Vector under its Land 129 programme.
The cost was a change of identity. A company that began with farmers and surveyors was now a defense supplier, which meant political scrutiny, long procurement cycles and a different kind of customer. It raised EUR 63.6M in 2023 and EUR 160M in May 2025, becoming Europe's first dual-use unicorn. In December 2025 Germany approved a framework agreement for 747 drones, and in July 2026 the company raised USD 1.2bn at an USD 8bn valuation.
For first-time founders, the lesson is about optionality. Seibel did not start with a defense strategy. He built a technology that could fly vertically and cruise efficiently, kept the company alive through years of small markets, and was ready when the world changed its mind about what drones were for.