CAMBRIDGE, Mass., October 7, 2025 — Tycho.AI, an unmanned aerial vehicle technology (UAV) company building resilient navigation and AI systems for unmanned vehicles, announced today it raised $10 million in Series A funding to accelerate product development and scale government deployments. FirstMark led the Series A, with additional investment from seed round investor Pillar VC.

“Tycho.AI is not simply building autonomy technology, we are laying the foundation for how humans and machines will interoperate in the real world,” said Thom Kenney, CEO of Tycho.AI and a U.S. Army combat veteran. “Our focus is on solving the hardest problem in autonomy: creating systems that remain reliable in the most complex and unpredictable environments, from denied battlefields to dense cities. We are assembling the people, the science, and the partnerships to make this vision real.”

Tycho.AI’s software and hardware solutions enable autonomous operations in GPS-denied and comms-contested environments, capabilities that are increasingly essential as adversaries expand electronic warfare capabilities. Tycho.AI’s systems integrate world-class visual navigation, obstacle detection and avoidance, sensor fusion, and machine learning algorithms with custom compute hardware and purpose-built FPGA and ASIC chips to navigate and operate in denied or degraded conditions, delivering fast, low, and precise autonomy without reliance on remote control or GPS. Unlike competitors developing large-scale AI models that require persistent connectivity and significant compute resources, Tycho.AI’s modular architecture runs directly on low-SWaP hardware, making it ideal for edge deployment on small aerial and ground systems.

“The challenge of autonomy has never been about making systems work in perfect conditions; it has always been about making them work when conditions are at their worst,” said Professor Sertac Karaman, Tycho.AI Founder and Executive Chair. “What excites me about Tycho.AI is the relentless focus on solving that problem. With the help of advanced machine learning, the team is building autonomy that will not just operate, but excel, in challenging places where other systems fail. This is the breakthrough that turns autonomy from fragile to truly mission-ready.”

The Series A round will fund the expansion of Tycho.AI’s engineering and capture teams, investment in flight testing and integration, and further development of its edge-AI autonomy stack for both military use and non-defense applications such as agricultural drone operations.

“Tycho.AI brings together extraordinary technical talent and deep operational experience,” said Amish Jani, Founder and Partner at FirstMark. “Autonomy that can think and act reliably at high speed in complex, unpredictable environments is one of the hardest challenges in technology today. Tycho is solving it now, and in doing so, is defining the future of how humans and machines operate together across every domain.”

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General (Ret.) Rich Clarke Joins Tycho.AI Board of Directors

Operating at the intersection of artificial intelligence, autonomy, and contested-domain operations, Tycho.AI is quickly becoming a critical player in the Pentagon’s push for next-generation, mission-resilient autonomy. General (ret.) Clarke, a decorated Army Ranger and former Commanding General of U.S. Special Operations Command, with decades of operational leadership, brings strategic vision and end-user insight to the company’s Board of Directors.

“In my experience, autonomy often falls short in the very environments we need it most,” said Clarke. “Tycho is fixing that, focusing not on academic AI, but on edge-executable autonomy for the toughest missions.”

Clarke is joining Tycho AI’s board at a time when the company has recently won over $5M in SBIR awards from U.S. defense agencies, including a Direct to Phase II with AFWERX, a Phase II from the Strategic Capabilities Office, and a TACFI with the Air Force Research Laboratory. 

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About Tycho AI

Tycho AI builds mission-critical autonomy software and mission-optimized compute hardware for unmanned systems in GPS-denied and comms-contested environments. The company’s edge-executable AI enables intelligent navigation and operation without remote control or persistent connectivity, allowing for fully autonomous high-speed and low-altitude operations. Steered by national security experts and MIT-educated engineers, Tycho is reshaping the future of battlefield autonomy. Visit www.tycho.ai/contact for more information.