Gallium Defense has emerged from stealth with a €7.1 million seed funding round led by Keen Venture Partners and 360 Capital, with participation from Omnes Capital and Polytechnique Ventures.

The French startup is developing the GDS-10, a software-defined, X-band active electronically scanned array (AESA) radar designed to detect first-person-view (FPV) drones up to 10 kilometres away, at a fraction of the cost of conventional systems.

Its target specifications include 360-degree horizontal and 90-degree vertical coverage, drone swarm tracking, jamming resistance, and day-and-night operation in all weather conditions. Two versions are being developed: one for critical infrastructure protection and another for military applications.

I spoke to Eric Fournier, CEO and co-founder of Gallium Defense, to learn more.

Building a radar company without reinventing the technology

Gallium Defense was founded in Paris in April 2026 by three former Boston Consulting Group colleagues: Eric Fournier (CEO), Florian Lemoine (CTO) and Robin Mandel (COO). Fournier brought experience accelerating complex defence R&D programmes, while Lemoine had previously worked with NATO and France's Directorate General of Armaments (DGA). Mandel brought expertise in computing and engineering infrastructure from his time at Thales and Safran.

Each had encountered different obstacles to developing and deploying defence technology.

For Fournier, the solution was often surprisingly straightforward: use existing components rather than develop everything from scratch.

“When you develop every component yourself, you lose time, money and, sometimes, performance,” he explained.

Lemoine, meanwhile, had spent years trying to convince NATO countries that technological sovereignty depended not only on developing advanced systems but also on manufacturing them quickly and at scale. The three eventually decided to put their ideas into practice by building their own radar system.

Recognising that they couldn't develop every component themselves, they partnered with Inovios, a French specialist in high-power radio-frequency technology, drawing on France's established RF and microwave technology ecosystem.

The founders began experimenting with radar technology before formally establishing Gallium Defense. In December 2025, they tested a small-scale antenna in an anechoic chamber, a controlled environment designed to minimise electromagnetic interference. The results convinced them that their concept had commercial potential.

Following the company's incorporation in April 2026, development of the first two GDS-10 prototypes began in June.

Gallium Defense is also supported by senior military and industry advisers, including General Autellet, former Deputy Chief of the French Defence Staff; General Philippe Lavigne, former NATO Supreme Allied Commander Transformation and Chief of Staff of the French Air and Space Force; and D. Gianonni, former CEO of Exail.

Why investors backed a supplier, not a wannabe defence prime

Gallium Defense's proposition was unusual for a venture-backed defence startup. Rather than becoming a major systems integrator or developing an all-encompassing defence platform, the founders wanted to become a specialist radar supplier.

Initially the approach initially proved difficult to pitch to investors:

“We were considering doing it alone because we were conscious that it was not a super sexy story,” Fournier admitted.

The turning point came when the founders met Dutch investor Keen Venture Partners, which recognised the potential of their supplier-led business model.

Once Keen committed, other investors followed, and the company completed its seed round considerably faster than the founders had anticipated.

Using telecoms technology to make radar cheaper

As drones use scales, conventional radar systems are coming under pressure, not only in terms of their detection capabilities but also their cost and ability to be deployed at scale. For Fournier, the starting point was a question raised by military operators:

“How do you meet 80 per cent of the need at 20 per cent of the price?”

They decided to rethink conventional radar architecture by drawing commercially available technologies rather than developing expensive bespoke components.

“If you really want to be effective at the speed of the war in Ukraine, you can't reinvent physics,” Fournier argued.

Gallium Defense combines technologies already widely used in telecommunications, photonics and high-performance computing to develop an affordable AESA radar. Fournier breaks the system into three essential components, which he calls “the muscle, the brain and the bridge."

The muscle is the antenna, which transmits electromagnetic signals and receives echoes reflected by objects such as drones, birds and aircraft.

The brain processes those signals to identify and distinguish between objects, while the bridge transfers large volumes of data between the antenna and the processing system.

Cutting antenna costs by more than tenfold

For the antenna, Gallium Defense turned to 5G telecommunications, where gallium-based components are widely used for signal amplification. These components are manufactured at enormous scale and are significantly cheaper than equivalent components traditionally used in military radar.

Adapting them for radar applications presented engineering challenges, but the company claims to have reduced antenna unit costs by more than tenfold. The savings are particularly significant because the GDS-10 incorporates approximately 512 individual antenna elements.

“Each time you're saving a bit of money on one antenna, it's multiplied by 510 times,” Fournier explained.

The company also challenged conventional assumptions about radar computing. Military radar systems have traditionally been designed around strict size, weight and power constraints, often relying on specialised processing hardware with limited computing capacity. However, Fournier argues that those constraints aren't equally important in every application.

“When you're protecting a military base, you really don't care,” he said, referring to the additional electricity required by more powerful computing hardware.

Instead, Gallium Defense uses NVIDIA computing technology, which Fournier claims delivers more than 100 times the processing capacity of some conventional approaches.

The radar's AI-ready architecture is designed to support increasingly sophisticated signal processing and object classification through software updates.

For the bridge connecting the antenna and processing system, the company adapted high-speed optical technology used in telecommunications.

From controlled demonstrations to commercial deployment

Gallium Defense has developed two operational antennas and demonstrated the detection of Class 1 drones at distances of 10 kilometres, albeit under controlled conditions, with favourable weather and known target locations.

Fournier admits,“We would have preferred rain.”

The company says it follows an iterative development process, updating the system every two weeks and conducting monthly field trials informed by operator feedback

Commercial orders are scheduled to open in the first quarter of 2027.

Finding the gap between short-range and high-end radar

Fournier believes Gallium Defense occupies an underserved segment of the radar market.

At one end are relatively affordable systems designed primarily for detection ranges below five kilometres. At the other are sophisticated systems from manufacturers such as Raytheon, Thales, Hensoldt and Saab, capable of operating at much greater distances but at substantially higher costs.

Gallium Defense aims to bridge that gap with an affordable system that can detect small drones at longer ranges. Fournier described the company's approach as detecting objects at longer distances before classifying them at approximately 10 kilometres, although full operational performance remains subject to further testing.

For counter-drone operators, the distinction is critical: detecting a fast-moving threat at 10 kilometres rather than two can provide several additional minutes to respond, depending on its speed.

Gallium Defense aims to deliver that additional warning time without the multimillion-euro price tag of conventional radar systems. Cheaper radar changes the economics of defence Gallium Defense’s radar can also be deployed to protect critical infrastructure. P

otential customers include energy companies, data centre operators, airports, logistics facilities and organisations responsible for protecting public spaces.

High-end systems can cost millions of euros, making equipment losses particularly expensive. Gallium Defense's lower-cost architecture makes it more practical to deploy multiple sensors, including in environments where equipment may be damaged or destroyed.

“That doesn't mean that it's not sturdy, but we accept attrition,” Fournier said.

Rather than replacing one expensive radar with a single cheaper alternative, operators could deploy several sensors for a comparable budget.

How cheaper radar could improve mobility in Ukraine

One limitation of conventional radar deployment is that systems often provide relatively static detection coverage. Repositioning them can create surveillance gaps and expose operators to additional risks. With several lower-cost radars, operators can move sensors sequentially while maintaining coverage. Fournier calls this approach “bouncing”.

“When you're having several of them, you can have one that is not moving, moving discreetly,” he explained.

Fournier believes affordable radar could complement existing systems and give operators greater flexibility.

Why Gallium Defense wants to supply the primes

Gallium Defense is currently discussing five potential MOUs with prospective partners.

“Our plan is to be a great supplier and to be integrated by the primes,” Fournier said.

This allows Gallium Defense to work within established procurement and integration structures rather than competing directly with major defence contractors. “

We are going at the speed of prime supply, not that of DoD supply,” he explained.

The GDS-10 is designed with open APIs that support interoperability standards including SAPIENT and ASTERIX, allowing its detection data to integrate into existing command-and-control and counter-drone systems.

Although its manufacturing strategy is European, the company is also engaging with potential partners beyond Europe, with its commercial focus on NATO and allied countries. Its dual-use technology is subject to applicable European and national export controls.

Fournier also sees opportunities in Europe's existing industrial supply chains, noting that the team discovered French-made components inside American computing systems.

Gallium Defense is also considering flexible manufacturing and commercial arrangements, including white-labelling and licensed assembly.

Its radar architecture consists of three principal modules that can be manufactured separately and combined during final assembly. That modular approach could allow partners to integrate the technology into their own products or establish local assembly operations.

The next challenge: manufacturing at scale

With its core radar architecture developed, Gallium Defense's immediate priority is industrialisation.

The company plans to expand from approximately 15 employees to around 50, building the manufacturing capacity, supply chain and commercial operations needed to produce radar systems at scale. The funding will also support further prototyping, AI development and demonstrations for operators across Europe and NATO-allied countries.

Beyond drone detection, Gallium Defense is exploring adjacent technologies where the same approach of combining commercially available components could reduce costs and improve performance.

Electronic warfare is one possible area of interest, although Fournier stressed that the company has not committed to specific diversification plans.

Alexander Ribbink, General Partner at Keen Venture Partners, said:

“Gallium Defense has the team, the industrial partners and the cost model to make drone detection a standard layer at every critical site — the kind of European capability our fund is proud to back.”

Alexandre Mordacq, Partner at 360 Capital, said:

“Drones have turned air security and air defence into a need for thousands of sites, and today's radars were never designed for this paradigm.

Eric, Florian and Robin have moved at remarkable speed since founding Gallium, and we are proud to support them in bringing the GDS-10 as quickly as possible to the operators and armed forces who need it most.”