Danish UAV sensor startup Sapient Perception raises €2 million to expand wide-area imaging platform
Sapient Perception has raised €2 million in pre-seed funding to scale an AI-enabled UAV sensor platform built to watch large areas without sacrificing image detail.
The Copenhagen-based company said the round was co-led by Balnord and FORWARD.one. It will use the money to advance its software-defined camera platform and IGNITE AI Framework, hire more engineers, and support early deployments in defense, security, and emergency response. The founders bring more than 45 years of combined experience in sensor architecture, imaging systems, and defense markets, including work at Danish high-resolution imaging company Phase One.
Sapient is targeting a long-standing limitation in ISR drone operations. Operators typically face a trade-off between wide coverage and the resolution needed to identify vehicles, personnel, or threats. Zoom out and detail disappears. Zoom in and broader situational awareness is lost. The company says its 10K sensors are designed to remove that compromise by covering up to 100 times the area of conventional drone cameras at full resolution in a single frame. The imagery is processed on board through an NVIDIA-based edge unit in a payload weighing less than 500 grams, allowing real-time output instead of post-mission review.
The system connects with standard drone platforms through MAVLink, CAN, and Ethernet interfaces. Sapient said the platform is NDAA compliant, ITAR-free, and built on an allied supply chain, credentials that can matter in U.S. and NATO procurement channels. The technology is already in operational use. Sapient is working with Dropla Tech to integrate its wide-area sensors into UAVs that fly low ahead of military convoys and feed imagery into Dropla’s Blue Eyes platform. That platform is being used by Ukraine’s Ministry of Defence in real time to detect ambush drones and landmines along frontline supply routes.
The company is also working with partners deploying its sensors on high-altitude and stratospheric platforms for wide-area ISR missions across Europe and North America. Earlier this year, the founders presented their physical AI approach for ISR at XPONENTIAL Europe in Düsseldorf, showing how the system could support situational awareness in contested environments. If the platform performs as claimed at scale, it could help reshape how drones balance persistence, coverage, and target recognition in military, security, and emergency operations.