Zuri unveils its first product: a hybrid uncrewed cargo VTOL

Zuri today unveiled the Zuri uncrewed cargo VTOL, a hybrid-electric tiltrotor for civil and defense operators. It carries a hundred-plus kilograms over 679 km by design, or 569 km with a full 30-minute reserve, cruises at 220 km/h, and lands on a pad, a deck, or open ground. The useful load is 165 kg, payload plus fuel.

It is built on Technology Demonstrator 2.0, the full-scale aircraft now in ground test in Prague. A €6M Series A first tranche funds TD 2.0 and its full flight test campaign, with €1.1M committed by existing investors.

The missions are routine and extraordinary: scheduled resupply to offshore platforms and islands, the failed part that idles a rig, relief past broken roads and bridges, and resupply to positions where the risk is sending people. Today a hundred-kilogram load to a North Sea deck goes by helicopter or supply vessel, or it waits; the aircraft flies the 200 km leg out and back while the vessel is still outbound, then refuels and flies it again. A 380 km resupply run between Baltic bases takes a road convoy most of a day; the aircraft covers it in a morning. No one is on board for any of it.

Zuri has flown more than fifteen aircraft and hundreds of test flights since 2018, and has held full-scale hover since 2021. Technology Demonstrator 2.0 carries the whole architecture in one full-scale aircraft and is in systems integration and ground test in Prague now. Flight testing is planned to begin in early 2027, and what TD 2.0 proves in the air becomes the uncrewed cargo aircraft. Six of the program's eight graded risks are already retired. What remains is integration and flight test, not invention.

Cargo rides in a sealed bay in the airframe. A pod underneath carries sensors, a communications relay, or more cargo, and is swapped on the ground as the mission changes. Every flight is remotely piloted, with one operator in command from the ground and automation handling the flying. Distributed propulsion and redundant fly-by-wire keep the aircraft controllable after the loss of a rotor, and leave no single point of failure. If the generator fails, the battery carries the landing. That is the redundancy offshore rules are asking for when they require a second engine on a helicopter.

Three decisions made in 2017 produce that reach, and the rest of the field is now converging on them. Tilting rotors carry the aircraft from vertical lift into wing-borne cruise, so the mission picks the site. A generator makes the electricity in flight, so range is set by tank size and refueling takes minutes on AVGAS, automotive gasoline, or bioethanol, which is already sustainable. A wing carries the weight in cruise, far more efficiently than rotors can hold it up.

The powertrain carries about 1,500 watt-hours per kilogram at system level, where the best aviation batteries reach 230 to 280. That buys a trade no battery aircraft can make, because a battery weighs the same full or empty: 115 kg across the full 679 km design range and 569 km with a full 30-minute reserve, or 145 kg over 272 km and 162 km with the same reserve. In the sensing role, carrying extra tanks and sensors only, it reaches about 1,908 km for coastal surveillance, survey, or scientific work.

"We spent nine years and more than fifteen aircraft teaching ourselves what this architecture can do. The uncrewed cargo VTOL is the first one we are building for someone else to fly. This round funds the demonstrator and its full flight test campaign."

Michal Illich, founder and CEO of Zuri

Zuri is raising a €6M first tranche of its Series A, of which €1.1M is committed by existing investors. The tranche funds TD 2.0 and its full flight test campaign, and carries the cargo aircraft toward its first airframe. The company has raised €7.6M since 2018, including that €1.1M; comparable Western programs have spent €300M and more to reach similar results. Commercial deliveries follow with the later tranches, in the 2027 to 2029 window.

Approval runs through the EASA Specific category, risk-assessed per operation under SORA, with no passenger type certificate between the aircraft and revenue. The Czech authority has known the company since its first aircraft registration in 2018. Design, build, and flight test happen in-house in the Czech Republic, ITAR-free, on a sovereign European supply base.

Full specifications are on the aircraft page, the flight record on proof, and the assets in the media kit.