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Soren Monroe-Anderson

Soren Monroe-Anderson is an entrepreneur and former professional drone racing pilot, the co-founder and chief executive of Neros Technologies, a maker of military FPV drones, and a 2025 Thiel Fellow.

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Key facts

Growing Up in Alaska and First Drones

He grew up in Anchorage, AlaskaAlaskaAlaska is the largest U.S. state by area and borders Canada to the east; its capital is Juneau and its largest city is Anchorage. Alaska was admitted to the Union on January 3, 1959, as the 49th state. Its population at the 2020 Census (April 1, 2020) was 733,391.Open the full entry; the Thiel Foundation’s 2025 list of fellows gives his hometown as “Anchorage, AK.” He recalled that as a child he liked building things and taking them apart, and that he flew remote-control airplanes and drove remote-control cars.⁠[1][2]

His father ran a mapping company that used drones for aerial photography and map data; he recalled flying drones for the business in exchange for drone parts from his father, which is how he got his first set of FPV (first-person-view) goggles for his 12th birthday.⁠[1]

He said that he began seeing FPV drones online at about age 11, when only a small group of hobbyists was working with the technology; he first mounted a camera and a video transmitter on a DJI Phantom 1 and kept crashing it, and at 12 he built his first racing drone by copying a multi-part YouTubeYouTubeYouTube is Google’s video-sharing and creator platform, founded in 2005 by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim and acquired by Google in 2006. Built around video uploading, viewing, and creator earnings, the platform has developed Shorts, YouTube Music, Premium, YouTube TV, and products for children, and is headquartered in San Bruno, California, United States.Open the full entry series that he watched three or four times.⁠[1]

The post he wrote for Neros in May 2024 states that both he and Olaf Hichwa had begun building technology by the age of ten.⁠[3]

Meeting Olaf Hichwa at a Race in Indiana

High School Years: Professional Drone Racing and a First Company

He recalled seeing people only a little older than himself flying at competitions, thinking it incredibly cool, and setting himself the goal of becoming a professional pilot and competing at the highest levels; after his freshman year of high school he stopped doing school sports, and he began flying professionally around that time.⁠[1]

He estimated that he missed about half of high school because of races and took more of his classes online; the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted the spring of his junior year, he stayed remote for his senior year, and he graduated a semester early.⁠[1]

At 16 he started a company that sold drone-racing parts; his May 2024 post states that the first business he started in high school was still serving the drone racing community.⁠[1][3]

He was a professional drone racing pilot with the Drone Racing League.⁠[3]

MultiGP World Champion

In 2020 he won the MultiGP drone racing world championship; Shaun Maguire wrote that by the time he was 17 he was a world champion in the MultiGP drone racing league. DroneXL states that of the two he became the better pilot, while Hichwa became known for his engineering prowess.⁠[3][5][4]

Co-founding Neros Technologies with Olaf Hichwa

He said that when Neros started in 2023 it was effectively impossible to buy an FPV drone without Chinese parts, and that the company therefore set out to build key components itself, including motors, sensors, electronics, flight controllers, radios, ground stations and antennas.⁠[1]

His May 2024 post lists Cantos as the investor in Neros’ pre-seed round; in his 2026 interview he called “John” at Vy Capital Neros’ “first-ever investor.”⁠[3][1]

Recruiting Olaf Hichwa to Build Drones for Ukraine

Neros’ website states that in the summer of 2023 he recruited his friend and former drone racing competitor Olaf Hichwa to develop FPV drones in support of the defense of Ukraine. DroneXL states that he had become fixated on helping Ukraine and that summer showed up at Hichwa’s job at an artificial intelligence startup in Palo Alto, California, begging him to make drones again; Shaun Maguire wrote that the two began building in earnest in June.⁠[7][4][5]

DroneXL states that the drones the two first tried to sell at the PentagonU.S. Department of DefenseThe U.S. Department of Defense is an executive department of the United States federal government, formed in 1949 from the National Military Establishment created in 1947 and headquartered at the Pentagon. The department’s website describes it as America’s oldest and largest government agency.Open the full entry had been built in his parents’ garage, whereas the show notes of a July 2026 podcast episode describe Neros as having begun with prototypes in a basement. DroneXL’s November 2025 article states that neither of the two has a college degree.⁠[4][8]

Taking Drones to Kyiv

In the fall of 2023 he and Hichwa traveled to Kyiv and distributed their drones to Ukrainian soldiers, collecting battlefield feedback; Neros’ website states that while there they demonstrated the prototypes to Ukraine’s deputy prime minister. DroneXL states that they met Deputy Prime Minister Mykhailo Fedorov, who said that anyone wanting to supply drones to Ukraine had to be able to produce at least 5,000 a month.⁠[4][7]

He recalled that Neros began by building 30 drones and carrying them to Ukraine in suitcases to get combat feedback, and that the company first contacted a Ukrainian pilot-training group, asked what problems it had, and went on to build lasting relationships with units.⁠[1][7]

Speaking of the experience in February 2025, he said they were informed that “if we could not make 5,000 drones per month we were essentially useless.”⁠[9]

Shaun Maguire wrote in May 2024 that he had traveled to the front lines of Ukraine the previous year to share his knowledge of flying drones and to see what soldiers needed, and that he came back with a clear vision for Neros; by September Neros, then at the pre-seed stage, had deployed functional drones in Ukraine.⁠[5]

At Age 20: First Attempt to Sell Drones to the U.S. Military

DroneXL states that he was 20 when he and Hichwa pitched their drones at the Pentagon, and that a senior Department of Defense official turned them away, saying: “You can’t just waltz into the Pentagon as 21-year-olds and sell weapon systems to the D.O.D.”⁠[4]

Announcing the Seed Round and a Factory in El Segundo

The post states that Neros had opened a 15,500-square-foot facility in El Segundo for research and development and high-volume production; that the team then numbered fewer than a dozen people; that its head of hardware, Sean Wood, had spent 12 years at SpaceXSpaceXSpaceX is a company founded by Elon Musk in 2002 whose businesses include space transportation, Starlink satellite communications and artificial intelligence. It went public in 2026 under the ticker SPCX.Open the full entry; and that Earl G. Matthews, a former senior director of the National Security Council and acting general counsel of the U.S. Army, had joined as employee number 2 to lead business development and legal affairs.⁠[3]

In the post he wrote that Neros’ experience in Ukraine had shown the scale of uncrewed systems in modern conflict, and he gave Ukrainian officials’ estimate that Ukraine’s armed forces use more than 50,000 drones a month; he wrote that China supplies most of the drones and components used by both Ukraine and Russia, and that Neros exists because this situation is unacceptable.⁠[3]

On the same day Shaun Maguire published the article “Partnering with Neros: Next-Gen Drones, Made in America” on Sequoia Capital’s website; it describes the two founders as “barely in their 20s” and states that Sequoia Capital partnered with Neros soon after his trip to Ukraine.⁠[5]

Neros Placed on China’s Sanctions List

In December 2024 the Chinese government sanctioned Neros together with 12 other American defense companies; Neros called the listing a “badge of honor.”⁠[10][11][9]

A Contract to Send 6,000 Drones to Ukraine

In February 2025 Neros won a contract to deliver 6,000 FPV attack drones to Ukraine over six months, purchased by the International Drone Capability Coalition; the model supplied, Archer, is an 8-inch drone able to carry a 2-kilogram warhead more than 20 kilometers and was the first FPV drone placed on the U.S.United StatesThe United States is a federal country in North America made up of 50 states, the District of Columbia as the seat of government, and territories such as Puerto Rico and Guam; its capital is Washington, D.C. The Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776. The 2020 census (April 1, 2020) counted a resident population of 331,449,281, and the 435 seats of the House of Representatives are apportioned among the states on the basis of the census.Open the full entry government’s Blue UAS list of approved drones.⁠[9]

He said at the time: “The largest U.S. drone companies are only setup to make a few thousand drones per year,” “Right now, the US military is way behind most of the world in using FPV drones,” and “Archer is an order of magnitude cheaper than other small drones on the BlueUAS list”; he also said that Neros was developing purpose-built lethal payloads with its partner Kraken Kinetics.⁠[9]

Announcing a $35 Million Series A

Speaking at the time of the round, he said: “FPV drones, which stem from hobbyists and drone racing, are heavily based on open-source designs and software.”⁠[13]

Selected as a Thiel Fellow

On May 22, 2025, the Thiel Foundation announced the 2025 class of the Thiel FellowshipThiel FellowshipThe Thiel Fellowship is a two-year grant program started by investor Peter Thiel and run by the Thiel Foundation that funds young people who skip or stop out of college to build new things instead. The program has been criticized by figures in education for encouraging young people to leave college.Open the full entry, which included him; the announcement describes his project in these terms: Neros is a defense technology company building drones critical to a modern arsenal at massive scale. The announcement states that each fellow in the class receives $200,000 over the next two years, that all fellows in the class were 22 or younger when applying, and that fellows must commit to focusing full-time on their projects, companies or ideas.⁠[2]

He recalled that he had known about the fellowship for a long time and decided to apply right at the end of his age eligibility; he said that the program was very valuable and that he made some very close friends in it. He said that Thiel CapitalThiel CapitalThiel Capital is an American investment firm founded by Peter Thiel in 2011 that provides strategic and operational support for his investment initiatives and entrepreneurial ventures; Founders Fund, Mithril, Valar Ventures, the Thiel Fellowship, and Breakout Labs were all incubated by the firm or its predecessors. It also invests in startups in its own name, partnered with Pacific Century to sponsor the Bridgetown series of special purpose acquisition companies, and took part in Bullish’s strategic funding round in 2021.Open the full entry had backed Neros a few years earlier, so he already had ties to that network, and that Neros was further along than most fellows’ companies when he joined, which made his experience different.⁠[1]

Setting a Goal of 10,000 Drones a Month by Year-End

In early July 2025 Neros was producing about 1,500 Archer drones a month in a 15,000-square-foot facility in Los Angeles; he said that about two-thirds of them went to Ukraine and about 500 to the U.S. military, and that the company aimed to raise output to 10,000 a month by the end of the year. The company’s long-term vision was a factory making one million drones a year, a level of production he called “absolutely required,” adding that even if the government was not then handing out a contract for a million drones a year, the company and its investors believed that this was what the country needed.⁠[10][11]

He said that over the previous year he had seen a “pretty aggressive” shift in interest from military officials and that the company had gone “from nothing to some of our customers doing live-fire demonstrations to senior leaders in 12 months”; he also said: “It took us a while to find the right customers and end users who were excited about the technology.”⁠[10][11]

The Defense News article of July 3, 2025, gives his age as 22 and describes him as a professional drone racer and hobbyist turned weapons maker.⁠[10]

That month a Neros Archer was among several drones flying around Defense Secretary Pete HegsethPete HegsethPete Hegseth (born 1980) is an American politician, author and former television host who has been the 29th U.S. secretary of defense since 2025, also styled Secretary of War since September 2025.Open the full entry when he announced policy changes aimed at turbocharging domestic drone production.⁠[4]

Piloting a Drone at a Flyoff in Alaska

At a drone flyoff held in Alaska in the summer of 2025 he piloted his drone toward a jamming device, which tried unsuccessfully to disrupt it, as military officials crowded around him.⁠[4]

A $75 Million Series B and the Army’s PBAS Program

On November 7, 2025, Neros announced that it had closed a $75 million Series B led by Sequoia Capital, with participation from Vy Capital US and Interlagos, bringing its total funding to more than $120 million; it also announced that it had been selected as one of the primary suppliers of FPV drones to the U.S. Army through the Purpose-Built Attritable Systems (PBAS) program.⁠[6][14]

In the release he said: “Our Series B fundraise represents the culmination of more than two years of company growth,” and thanked investors for backing the company’s goal of reshoring an American drone industrial base; Shaun Maguire, a partner at Sequoia Capital, said: “Neros is one of the fastest companies in history to be awarded meaningful defense contracts.”⁠[6]

DroneXL’s article of November 10, 2025, gives his age as 22 and Hichwa’s as 24; it states that Neros had raised $121 million in total, employed 80 people in Los Angeles, Kyiv, London and Washington, D.C., virtually all of them older than the founders, that about 20 technicians were assembling roughly 2,000 drones a month by hand, and that a contract with the U.S. Marine Corps valued at about $17 million was to deliver around 8,000 FPV drones together with operator training.⁠[4]

Maj. Steven Atkinson of the Marine Corps Warfighting Lab had been looking for American companies willing to supply small drones for under $2,000 apiece and found none until he found Neros; of the two founders he said: “They were pretty young, but they did FPVs,” and “What they have been able to accomplish is unheard-of.”⁠[4]

Headquarters and Production Move to Torrance

In February 2026 Neros moved its headquarters and production from El Segundo to a 250,000-square-foot building in Torrance, California, called Millennium One; Manufacturing Dive and DroneXL give the size of the previous facility, opened in 2024, as 15,000 square feet, while Molly O’Shea’s Sourcery gives it as 20,000 square feet. He said that the new facility was sized to produce one million drones a year and that Neros aims to be the first American company to reach that rate.⁠[15][16][17][1]

Interview Published in Arena Magazine

On April 18, 2026, Arena Magazine published an interview with him in its “Principals” series, in which he said: “I’m 22.” He said: “Almost everyone at the company has more years of experience than I do,” and that he makes few top-down calls and defers to experts; he said that the company then had about 150 employees and had raised about $121 million in total.⁠[1]

He said that he travels to Ukraine often. He said that electronic warfare is the biggest challenge for FPV drones and that fiber-optic drones emerged because radio-frequency jammers cannot disrupt them; that the effective reach of drones had grown from about 5 kilometers in 2023 to a zone about 30 kilometers wide in which almost nothing can move, with deep strikes aimed at logistics lines 30 to 50 kilometers behind the front.⁠[1]

He said that Neros’ drones were then manually piloted, that a variant with autonomy was in development with a first version due that year, and that it was meant to give operators leverage and not to replace them; he said that Neros’ flight test team flies in the desert every day and that the company intended to own the full FPV stack without Chinese supply-chain inputs before expanding into other product lines.⁠[1]

Of the Pentagon’s Drone Dominance initiative he said that it had created urgency in the industry, and he expected many of the companies selected in the first round (Gauntlet 1) to struggle with delivery, so that the field would narrow.⁠[1]

An Army Contract with a $500 Million Ceiling

In March 2026 Neros delivered the first Archer Block 2 drones under the Army’s PBAS program ahead of schedule. On June 30, 2026, the U.S. Army awarded Neros an indefinite-delivery contract with a $500 million ceiling for Archer drones under that program, running through June 2031.⁠[18]

Molly O’Shea’s Sourcery wrote in August 2026 that the contract covers hundreds of thousands of drones over the next five years, including the new Archer AI, and that Neros spent roughly a year building new drone sizes and a new ground station ahead of the fly-off, out of which the Army selected three companies. He said: “They selected two other companies as well, but we were the only ones to really deliver in a meaningful way.”⁠[17]

Guest on the Podcast Valley of Depth

On July 7, 2026, Payload released an interview with him on its podcast Valley of Depth, titled “Solving America’s Drone Problem”; the episode description states that he grew up racing FPV drones and that Neros was then a 200-person company producing roughly 1,000 drones a week and planning a factory able to make one million a year.⁠[8]

The episode’s chapters include, in order: his and Olaf’s backgrounds (04:45), the first meeting with the Department of Defense (07:28), the keys to his early success (08:54), the most successful technology in Ukraine (11:39), U.S. and Chinese drone manufacturing (15:09), Neros’ facility and production process (18:42), talent challenges (23:50), revenue concentration (27:05), the $120 million raised and near-term capital needs (32:12), going from professional drone racer to chief executive (41:41), whether he still builds drones (45:28), building lethal systems (48:46), a “health scare” of his (50:21), moral criticism of drone warfare (51:28), the advice he would give his earlier self (56:51) and his hobbies (59:31).⁠[8]

A $250 Million Series C at a $2.5 Billion Valuation

In the release he said: “Our mission to produce one million drones per year hasn’t changed,” and “Our core business has seen explosive growth since our last financing round in November.” The release states that the funds are for Archer AI, an FPV platform with added autonomy, and Bandit, a counter-drone interceptor, both expected to be deployed in combat theaters by the end of 2026.⁠[19]

On the same day Molly O’Shea’s Sourcery released an interview with him. He said: “Fundraising isn’t the goal, but it is a tool, and I think this is a great milestone for the company.” Sourcery wrote that the round was preempted and came together quickly with existing investors, that headcount had grown from under 100 at the start of 2026 to more than 250, and that output was then about 1,250 drones a week, with the company expecting to exceed a run rate of 100,000 drones a year by the end of 2026 and to reach one million a year in 2028.⁠[17]

In the interview he said: “I say we wanna be the Toyota of defense manufacturing.” On the supply chain he said: “I would be lying to you if I said nothing in our supply chain relies on China”; Sourcery wrote that printed circuit board manufacturing still depends on precursor chemicals dominated by China and on some raw materials. On capacity he said: “To claim a production capacity, in my opinion, you need to have done it many times over.”⁠[17]

Announcing an Order for 14,000 Drones in the Second Round of Drone Dominance

Manufacturing Dive states that Neros took part in the summer of 2026 in Gauntlet II, the second round of the Pentagon’s Drone Dominance Program. On September 30, 2026, Neros announced that through Gauntlet II it had received an order for 14,000 drones and explosive payloads valued at more than $100 million, and said that it had placed first in the Close Quarters Battle mission and third in the Deep Strike mission; the company also received a bonus order tied to Gauntlet I for 800 additional drones, reallocated from competitors that had missed their production deadlines.⁠[21][15][16]

As of November 2026: Founder of Neros

As of November 2026 the careers page of Neros’ website identifies him as the founder of Neros; the page lists the company’s global headquarters in Los Angeles and its offices in Washington, D.C., Kyiv and London, and states that the company currently makes more than 5,000 drones a month, with targets of a run rate of 100,000 drones a year by the end of 2026 and one million a year by the end of 2028.⁠[22]

A Conditional Loan Commitment of up to $450 Million from the Office of Strategic Capital

On November 2, 2026, the Office of Strategic Capital of the Pentagon (then styled the Department of War) announced that it had signed a conditional loan commitment of up to $450 million with Neros to expand domestic production in Torrance of drones, ground control systems and critical components such as motors, radios, flight electronics, sensors and batteries; the loan is to be disbursed only after Neros meets financial, legal, technical, investment and due-diligence requirements. Neros is contributing $165 million of equity of its own, for a project total of $615 million.⁠[23][24][15][25]

In Neros’ announcement he said that the capital would put Neros “on the path to one million drones per year by 2028.”⁠[24][25]

Defense Daily states that the arrangement gives the Office of Strategic Capital an equity stake in Neros, which Neros called “small”; Ross Pedersen, Neros’ head of growth, said that the Pentagon is getting a small stake in the company without any voting or decision-making rights. DroneXL states that Neros’ website said the deal gives taxpayers an ownership stake, whereas the Office of Strategic Capital’s announcement did not mention a government stake, and that neither side disclosed the size or form of the stake.⁠[26][27][16]

Views on Drone Manufacturing and the Chinese Supply Chain

He argues that China came to dominate consumer electronics because American companies moved manufacturing there, and that Shenzhen’s supply base made sourcing cheap and fast; he said that DJI scaled through high volume and Chinese government subsidies and later absorbed smartphone chip companies to build custom drone silicon.⁠[1]

In August 2026 he said: “The way America got left behind was not caring about consumer electronics manufacturing being done domestically.” On terminal guidance he said: “Once the pilot has selected the target and the drone has a lock on it, it doesn’t need input anymore.”⁠[17]

He said that he has benefited from the mentorship of investors, naming “Shaun at Sequoia” and “John at Vy Capital.”⁠[1]

Other Interviews

Episode #008 of the podcast Relentless, “Soren Monroe-Anderson: Founder of Neros,” is a conversation between the host and him; its description calls him one of the co-founders of Neros Technologies, a drone startup based in El Segundo.⁠[28]

Episode 29 of the podcast S³ features an interview with him, “Soren Monroe-Anderson: Building Drones for Ukraine”; its description calls him chief executive and co-founder of Neros, and its chapters include his background as a world champion drone pilot, the inspiration for founding Neros, the geopolitics of manufacturing, hardware and software, and his life philosophy.⁠[29]

Related Organizations, Websites, and Public Accounts

Neros Technologies: Official website: https://www.neros.tech/ (opens in a new window).⁠[22]

Thiel Fellowship: Official website: https://thielfellowship.org/ (opens in a new window).⁠[30]

Sources

  1. Principals: Soren Monroe-Anderson (opens in a new window)
  2. Thiel Foundation Announces 2025 Class of Thiel Fellows (opens in a new window)
  3. Neros closes $10.9M; opens new factory (opens in a new window)
  4. From Teenage Drone Racers To $121M Defense Contractors: How Two 20-Somethings Are Building America’s FPV War Machine (opens in a new window)
  5. Partnering with Neros: Next-Gen Drones, Made in America (opens in a new window)
  6. Neros Closes $75M Series B Fundraise led by Sequoia Capital, Selected for Army Program (opens in a new window)
  7. Mission - Neros (opens in a new window)
  8. Solving America’s Drone Problem, with Soren Monroe-Anderson (CEO of Neros) (opens in a new window)
  9. Neros Wins Contract To Send 6,000 American-made Drones To Ukraine (opens in a new window)
  10. ‘Made-in-America’ drone maker Neros awaits its big Pentagon break (opens in a new window)
  11. Peter Thiel-Backed Startup That Sends Drones In Ukraine Eyes 10,000 Units Monthly: 'Absolutely Required' To Win Future Conflicts, CEO Warns (opens in a new window)
  12. Soren Monroe-Anderson (opens in a new window)
  13. Drone Startup Neros Gets $35 Million (opens in a new window)
  14. Drone maker Neros closes Series B round to expand industrial capacity (opens in a new window)
  15. Neros plans $615M drone manufacturing expansion in US (opens in a new window)
  16. Neros Gives Pentagon A Small Stake With No Vote, Then Asks Who Buys (opens in a new window)
  17. BREAKING: Neros Hits $2.5B Valuation on $250M Series C (opens in a new window)
  18. Neros Raises $250M At $2.5B As The Army Bets On A Million Drones (opens in a new window)
  19. NEROS RAISES $250M SERIES C AT $2.5B VALUATION TO SCALE AUTONOMOUS AND INTERCEPTOR DRONE PROGRAMS (opens in a new window)
  20. Neros Plans Production Scale and New Products After $250M Raise (opens in a new window)
  21. NEROS AWARDED $100 MILLION ORDER THROUGH DRONE DOMINANCE GAUNTLET II (opens in a new window)
  22. Careers - Neros (opens in a new window)
  23. Department of War’s Office of Strategic Capital Signs Conditional Loan Commitment of up to $450 Million With Neros, Inc (opens in a new window)
  24. Neros Signs $450M Conditional Loan Commitment with the Office of Strategic Capital to Establish America’s Drone Industrial Base (opens in a new window)
  25. Neros Says $450M Pentagon Loan Deal Gives Taxpayers An Ownership Stake (opens in a new window)
  26. DoD Taking Equity Stake In Drone Manufacturer Neros With Planned $450 Million Loan (opens in a new window)
  27. Pentagon Takes Stake in Neros with $450M OSC Loan (opens in a new window)
  28. #008 Soren Monroe-Anderson: Founder of Neros (opens in a new window)
  29. Soren Monroe-Anderson: Building Drones for Ukraine (opens in a new window)
  30. Thiel Fellowship (opens in a new window)