Startup building unmanned cargo planes raises $60 million

Poseidon Aerospace, a startup building unmanned cargo aircraft, has raised $60 million in a Series A funding round for defense and commercial logistics work, the company announced.

TQ Ventures led the round, with participation from JAWS, G Squared, Hanwha Asset Management USA, Starship Ventures, Drover Ventures, Draper Associates and other investors. The company said the round was oversubscribed. The funding values Poseidon at $350 million, according to a video the company posted alongside its announcement.

Poseidon’s flagship aircraft, called Egret, is an unmanned regional freighter with roughly a 50-foot wingspan, designed to carry multiple tons of cargo. The company says it is built to run at a fraction of the operating cost of regional cargo planes flying today, aimed at both regional commercial freight routes and what the company describes as contested logistics for defense customers.

“Poseidon exists to bring about the future of air cargo and logistics,” said David Zagaynov, co-founder and CEO. “Most aircraft are designed first around the people flying them and then adapted to carry cargo. We are starting with a different question: How would you design an aircraft if its only purpose were to move payload as efficiently and reliably as possible? We are building unmanned cargo planes from the ground up, designed and purpose-built for logistics with every modern innovation.”

Poseidon expects Egret’s first uncrewed flight by the end of 2026. In 2025, the company flew Seagull, a quarter-scale demonstrator the company says it used to test elements of Egret’s design and control systems before building the full-size aircraft.

“Air cargo is one of the world’s most important pieces of infrastructure, yet the aircraft and operating models behind it have changed remarkably little,” said Schuster Tanger, co-founder and partner at TQ Ventures. “David, Parker and the Poseidon team are taking a disciplined, first-principles approach: use proven technologies where they work, redesign the aircraft around payload and build an operating model that can deliver lower costs and higher utilization. We believe Poseidon can build critical logistics infrastructure for both commercial customers and national security.”

Poseidon plans to operate its own cargo flights rather than sell aircraft to existing carriers, a model the company says lets it fly routes without the scheduling limits tied to where pilots are based or how many hours a crew can work. The company says that structure is intended to serve remote or underserved regional routes that conventional air cargo carriers find uneconomical, while also supporting Defense Department logistics in environments where infrastructure is limited or contested.

Poseidon was founded in 2024 and is headquartered in Alameda, California. The company previously raised smaller pre-seed and seed rounds backed by some of the same investors now in its Series A, including Starship Ventures and Draper. The new funding will go toward flight-testing Egret, setting up the company’s first production line, and expanding its engineering and operations teams.