Grid Aero’s Lifter Lite autonomous cargo aircraft inside a hangar. Photo: Grid Aero
Grid Aero on Jan. 26 said it has raised $20 million in a funding round to move the Lifter Lite long-range, autonomous unmanned aircraft system (UAS) into flight testing and use in military exercises and customer use cases this year.
Bison Ventures and Geodesic Capital led the Series A round, which follows Grid Aero’s exit from stealth last August with a $6 million seed round.
The initial Lifter Lite prototype has been assembled and is “progressing through a series of increasingly more complex ground and taxi tests to put all systems through their paces in preparation for flight,” Arthur Dubois, co-founder and CEO of Grid Aero, told sister publication Defense Daily in an email reply to questions. “These range from engine power tuning to communication systems and software redundancies.”
Grid Aero has two goals in the current testing phase, the first is to begin flying and the second is to take lessons learned from the current aircraft to “inform the next iteration of the design” which is under way, Dubois said.
Lifter Lite is designed as a low-cost airlifter that can autonomously ferry between 2,000 and 10,000 pounds of cargo over thousands of miles between islands and countries in the Pacific region. Grid Aero says the rugged aircraft will be able to operate from austere and degraded locations with limited infrastructure and in contested airspace.
“We’re focused on solving major problems for the warfighter, starting with contested logistics,” Dubois said in a statement. “Those same challenges of range, resilience, and operating in constrained environments also define many commercial, humanitarian and remote locations.”
Dubois declined to comment on specific exercises the company is hoping to participate in but said there are about a dozen, and could include “physical participation in exercises and anything in between.”
The company is also pursuing non-defense opportunities.
Last fall, Grid Aero said it received a letter of intent from Everts Air to use Lifter Lite to fly cargo and fuel to remote regions in Alaska. In late 2025, the company said it is partnering with aerial sensor services company A2G International on autonomous logistics for remote areas.
The new investment in San Leandro, Calif.-based Grid Aero included new investors Stony Lonesome Group and Alumni Ventures, and returning investors Ubiquity Ventures, Calibrate Ventures and Commonwealth Ventures.
A version of this story originally appeared in affiliate publication Defense Daily.