Orqa is a Croatian company that designs and manufactures drones, components and ground stations entirely in Europe, a rare setup in an industry that mostly relies on China. Orqa now builds primarily for defence customers across NATO and the West, and shipped 250,000 products last year, a number it's on track to double in 2026.
Srdjan Kovacevic is CEO and Co-Founder of Orqa. He believes most Western militaries aren't ready for drone warfare yet, and that needs to change fast.
The Scaling Europe show is presented by Deel. Check them out here: https://get.deel.com/ruynb7o4lfjk
Sponsors:
Chargebee: https://www.chargebee.com/events/beelieve/london/2026
SurrealDB: https://surrealdb.com/
Airwallex: https://www.airwallex.com/uk?utm_source=other&utm_medium=partner_referral&utm_campaign=v01_emea_multi_ib_dg_prtmk_mofu_scalingeurope
Lovable: https://lovable.dev/
Timestamps:
0:00 - Introduction
0:15 - What Orqa builds
1:07 - Why Orqa set out to build Europe's answer to Chinese drone brands
2:36 - Why Orqa builds everything in Europe
5:03 - Orqa's current production scale
6:41 - How the war in Ukraine pulled Orqa into defence
8:05 - Why Orqa builds for NATO's future needs, not Ukraine's immediate ones
10:19 - Orqa's production numbers: 250,000 products shipped last year
13:16 - Orqa's biggest supply chain bottleneck
15:40 - Why the AI boom is causing a new chip shortage for Orqa
19:10 - Ukraine's drone warfare numbers
20:36 - How drone warfare has transformed the battlefield
