SE3, a Munich startup building spatial intelligence software for autonomous systems, has raised a $30M Series A led by Accel, with Keen, Lakestar, and Seedcamp participating. The round comes just five months after the company emerged from stealth with a €5.5M seed. The company's software sits between raw sensor data and action, connecting drones and ground vehicles from different manufacturers and fusing what they see into a shared 3D picture of the environment, which it uses to run swarms with operators commanding everything by voice.
The software runs on-edge, which matters in contested environments where electronic warfare jams satellite navigation. SE3 is already deployed in Ukraine, works on multiple contracts there and with Germany's Bundeswehr, and says it has shipped thousands of systems in the past two years. Its partners include defence prime HENSOLDT and scale-ups Auterion and ERC System, and its software runs on Auterion's Skynode computers. S2 adds that the company's basic capability of locating a drone without GPS has reportedly been delivered thousands of times.S1S2
The company spun out of Professor Daniel Cremers' computer vision lab at the Technical University of Munich, where co-founders Lukas Köstler and Simon Klenk were doing PhDs. Cremers, now chief science officer, holds TUM's chair for computer vision and AI and won the Leibniz Prize. Köstler, the CEO, said that working in defence means the technology has to deliver under pressure in the field. S2 notes the system uses classical computer vision to build a database that a language model can query, and that actions such as takeoff can require human operator approval.S1S2
European procurement is shifting toward modularity and interoperability through frameworks such as the Modular Open Systems Approach and Germany's MOSABw programme, favouring independent software that integrates across manufacturers. The EU aims to mobilise €800B in defence spending by 2030 and is planning a drone wall along its eastern flank, a wave of capital that has already produced Helsing's €12B valuation. S2 adds that the new funds will support hiring and new offices in London, Berlin, the Nordics, the Baltics and Poland.S1S2
Defence remains the focus for now, and from 2027 SE3 plans to extend the same spatial layer into robotics, emergency response, and other settings where machines must cope with the unpredictable. The new capital goes into engineering, commercial and operations hires, a UK office, and a deeper presence in Germany and Ukraine.S1
