Tapingo founders raise $41M to take Aitan's drone software beyond Israel

Why it matters

Aitan is betting that the most defensible position in military robotics sits above the hardware: the software that lets governments coordinate and replace machines without surrendering operational control.

Aitan emerged from stealth on September 2 with a $41 million financing for co-CEOs Udi Oster and Daniel Almog, the former Unit 8200 officers who previously built and sold campus ordering startup Tapingo. The founders are taking a drone control system developed and used in Israel and packaging it for allied governments that want more control over their robotic fleets.

The financing was co-led by Deep33 and Dell Technologies Capital, with participation from Gokul Rajaram, Benjamin Ling through Bling Capital, and Kevin Weil through Scribble Ventures. Aitan said in its September 2 announcement that the deal brought its total equity funding to $54 million. The financing is presented without a round label or valuation.

Oster and Almog met while serving as officers in the Israel Defense Forces' Unit 8200 and founded Tapingo in 2014. Grubhub paid $150 million in cash for Tapingo in November 2018, giving the pair an exit before they moved from consumer logistics into a far more consequential operating problem: coordinating drones and autonomous systems in active combat.

A second act built during war

Oster's path into defense technology began on October 8, 2023, when he handed two personal drones to a reservist headed to the front, according to an August interview with Calcalist Tech. The encounter exposed how few small drones were available to units that suddenly needed surveillance equipment in large numbers.

"Today, drones seem like a given," Oster told Calcalist. "In October 2023, they were almost nowhere."

The founders later invested in eyesAtop, a small Israeli drone software developer whose Ronen operating system could control different civilian and military aircraft through one interface. Calcalist reported that Oster and Almog invested $1 million in eyesAtop in March 2024 and took control in September 2025. Research materials indicate that Aitan is built on technology and personnel associated with eyesAtop, though the precise legal and operational relationship is not public.

The new name carries a personal history. Aitan was named for Oster's younger brother, Eitan Oster, an Egoz commando officer killed in combat in Lebanon in 2024. The founders also worked with Or Levy, a longtime friend and former colleague who was kidnapped from the Nova music festival, where his wife, Einav, was murdered. Levy was released from captivity in February 2025.

"We built Aitan because we had no choice," Almog said in the funding announcement.

That history explains why Aitan's founders talk about product iteration in weeks rather than traditional defense procurement cycles measured in years. Their argument is that robotic weapons behave more like rapidly changing computing systems than stockpiled munitions. Aircraft, batteries, radios, navigation systems and countermeasures change during a conflict, while damaged supply chains can make a preferred component unavailable.

The operating layer between soldiers and machines

Aitan is selling a hardware-agnostic command-and-control layer that can connect drones from different manufacturers, combine sensor data and coordinate multiple operators and vehicles. Public descriptions include edge AI, target tracking and navigation when satellite positioning or communications are degraded.

The pitch is less about manufacturing one definitive drone than keeping a mixed fleet useful as hardware and battlefield conditions change. A government could integrate locally produced or independently sourced aircraft while retaining a common operating interface, training system and command layer. Aitan calls this model "Robotic Sovereignty-as-a-Service," an awkward label for a direct procurement concern: militaries do not want their autonomous forces locked to one foreign vendor, one airframe or a supply chain they cannot repair during war.

Aitan says its software supports more than 20 drone integrations and has accumulated over 500,000 combat hours across Israeli military and national security deployments. Those are company-supplied figures, and Aitan has not identified the systems or agencies behind the full tally. Axios reported that Aitan has also secured international contracts for command-and-control networks and robotic weapon designs.

The strongest public validation is a recent Israeli Ministry of Defense selection. In July, eyesAtop and Kela were chosen to develop a command platform for the IDF's next-generation attack drone program. That procurement illustrates the market Aitan is entering: defense programs can involve multiple suppliers as the technology develops.

Calcalist reported that Aitan employs about 50 people in Ramat Gan and generates annual sales in the tens of millions of dollars. Aitan also operates from New Jersey and plans to use the financing to hire in the United States and pursue customers in Europe and Asia.

Selling sovereignty against much larger platforms

Aitan is entering a well-funded field. Anduril's Lattice connects sensors, autonomous vehicles and human operators, while Shield AI develops autonomy software for aircraft operating in contested environments. Auterion, XTEND, ARX Robotics and Overland AI are also pursuing parts of the military autonomy and robotic command stack.

Aitan's opening comes from the messy middle of that market. Militaries are buying vehicles from multiple suppliers faster than common controls, maintenance systems and operating doctrine can mature. Oster and Almog are betting that the durable position belongs to the software coordinating those machines, particularly when governments insist on local production, replaceable components and national control over mission data.

The founders have already built one marketplace around fragmented supply and demand. Tapingo was an online ordering and delivery marketplace for college campuses. Aitan applies a related integration instinct to machines operating where networks fail, parts disappear and errors carry a different cost.

The $41 million gives Oster and Almog enough capital to turn a system shaped around Israel's immediate wartime requirements into a product that other governments can procure and operate. Their next test is whether battlefield experience transfers across military doctrines, procurement regimes and hardware fleets without becoming another expensive layer of systems integration.