Series A open.See the round →
Team
30+ people design, build, and fly every Zuri aircraft in-house: more than fifteen flown, the second technology demonstrator in ground test.
The industry
Built in Prague by engineers from the L-410, A350, and A400M programs. Aerospace is not a startup scene here; it is a century-old industry.
Founded in 2017, Zuri is staffed from that industry: engineers who certified and shipped aircraft before Zuri existed.
"This is not about chasing trends. It's about building something real that flies and lasts."
Leadership
Founder & CEO
Built and exited internet companies for two decades, including the search engine behind the Czech Republic's biggest portal, then the largest shareholder in StartupYard and its hundred-plus investments. Since 2017, Zuri has his full attention.
LinkedIn ↗Chief Engineer
Ten years designing aircraft at Aircraft Industries and VZLÚ, with work reaching Airbus Helicopters and ESA's JUICE spacecraft. He took TD 1.0 from blank sheet to flight test, and owns the airframe, systems integration, and airworthiness.
LinkedIn ↗
Chief Marketing Officer
Twenty-five years making companies understood and trusted, from DHL to JetBrains. He owns Zuri’s positioning across civil, defense, media and investors, and speaks regularly on hybrid VTOL.
LinkedIn ↗Electrical Systems Lead
Electric propulsion for fifteen years, from NASA and ESA spacecraft sensors to embedded electronics. He leads Zuri’s electrical architecture and motor control. A pilot himself, with PPL and ultralight licenses.
LinkedIn ↗
Industrial Designer
Seven years at Zuri, on aircraft design. He shapes the passenger aircraft: its fuselage, its exterior, and the cabin a passenger sits in. A pilot himself, on paragliders and airplanes.
LinkedIn ↗
Office Manager and Finance
A decade and a half running the operations companies stand on. She owns finance, controlling, and the administration that keeps the team building aircraft instead of chasing paperwork.
LinkedIn ↗The bench
Behind the names, the disciplines an aircraft actually needs, each staffed by people who have done it before at scale.
Designers with Airbus A380 interiors, L-39NG nose-section, and L-410 modernization programs behind them; aerodynamicists running CFD and wind-tunnel campaigns at VZLÚ.
Senior stress engineers who serve as EASA Compliance Verification Engineers at Aircraft Industries, with certification stress work on Airbus A380, A400M, and A350 structures and the L-410 NG.
Battery, power-electronics, and firmware engineers from automotive, medical, and motorsport backgrounds, behind the cells, controllers, and firmware the powertrain runs on.
Simulation and control engineers from CTU Prague's Multi-Robot Systems Group, with PhD researchers in flight control and trajectory planning: the automation the uncrewed aircraft flies on.
The aircraft is assembled meters from where it is designed, under a dedicated manufacturing chief since 2025, with the quality system headed for AS9100.
A former Airbus A320 airline pilot as project manager; a business developer with forty years in aircraft certification and international trade, who negotiated the distributor letters of intent for the six-seat aircraft.
Investors
Pale Fire Capital and the founders of Kiwi.com, Beat Saber, GoodAI, and Mirantis: investors who built companies before backing this one.
€7.6M raised since 2018; the whole record flown on it. We raise what the work needs, and it becomes aircraft.
The investment case →Institutions & partners
European research money, Czech academia, the certification authority, and a named supplier behind every major system.
University of West Bohemia
Prague workshop, July 2026, EUSPA-funded Horizon Europe project VITOLMINS.
Frequently asked questions
Zuri was founded in Prague in 2017 by Michal Illich, a Czech tech entrepreneur, and has been founder-led since: he works on the company full-time as CEO.
More than thirty people in Prague: aircraft designers, stress and certification engineers, electrical and flight-control engineers, and the operations behind them, with design, build, and flight test under one roof.
Talent, cost, and alignment. Czech aerospace is a century-old industry that still designs, builds, and certifies airframes, so the hiring pool is deep. Engineering costs run below Western European rates, part of how more than fifteen aircraft cost €7.6M. And the country is an EU and NATO member: EASA rules, NATO interoperability, and a sovereign European supply base.
Yes. Zuri hires aircraft designers, stress and certification engineers, electrical and flight-control engineers, and manufacturing and flight-test staff, all based at the Prague facility. The team is past thirty people and the work is hardware that flies within months rather than careers. Open roles and how to apply are on the careers page.
In under a decade, an engineer here ships hardware that flies, repeatedly, before most programs fly once.