In recent years, small, inexpensive drones have transformed the economics of defense. They are cheap to deploy, difficult to detect, and increasingly capable. Stopping them often requires systems that cost far more, are difficult to scale, and are not designed to respond to threats moving this quickly.

For Tobias Brune, co-founder of Ground A, this imbalance can no longer be ignored.

Ground A is developing laser defense systems capable of detecting, tracking, and countering small drones. The first challenge is small, fast FPV drones that fly at short range; Tobias calls this the final layer of defense, since there are only a few seconds to spot and react to a threat.

The company’s mission is urgent because of the experience Tobias and his co-founders have had in Ukraine and elsewhere. Drones, now cheaper, faster, and easier to use, have shifted from a specialist military tool to a threat that can affect soldiers, cities, airports, and critical infrastructure.

In the interview, Tobias explains why he resigned from his senior corporate position to found Ground A, why he regards the company primarily as a software business even though lasers are a key part of its products, and why future defense systems must keep pace with rapidly changing threats.

About Ground A

Ground A is developing compact, self-operating laser systems to deal with drones and, in the future, address a broader range of new threats.

The company's first product targets small FPV drones, which Tobias says are especially hard to defend against because they can be small, fast, and difficult for conventional radar systems to detect in time. As a final stage of defense, the time allowed to identify, track, and respond to such a target amounts to just a few seconds.

Rather than treating the laser as a standalone weapon, the company is developing an integrated system which involves optical detection, autonomous tracking, software, and hardware. Tobias states that Ground A is "70-80% a software company" because much of the technical difficulty lies in creating models that can track fast-moving objects.

The system is also built to be compact so it can be used on various platforms and in larger defense arrangements. After speaking with the German armed forces, Ukrainian brigades, and major defense companies, Ground A has found that for customers, integration and mobility are just as important as speed and targeting.

Why small drones have become such a difficult problem

Tobias is adamant that Ground A is not the solution to every aerial threat.

He says the defense effort should be based on multiple layers, since different systems are more effective at various distances and against different types of targets; missiles, interceptor drones, and other technologies are most suitable when a threat is detected from a distance.

Ground A focuses on actions to take when the threat comes much closer.

Small FPV drones are particularly difficult to cope with because defenders have very little time to react; they move quickly, alter course, and are hard to detect using normal systems. Tobias refers to the conflict in Ukraine as evidence of the extent of this change, stating that FPV drones now account for a large proportion of the casualties on both sides.

The issue is not limited to the areas currently experiencing war.

European airports and other critical infrastructure have been the scene of numerous drone incidents, showing that even simple drones can cause serious problems. Tobias is particularly worried that it is now much easier to carry out these threats than to prevent them.

When very close, there are few options. Tobias mentions that in Ukraine, soldiers have had to use shotguns if an FPV drone gets too near, which leaves almost no room for mistakes.

Ground A seeks to extend the defensive position by combining optical detection and automated tracking with directed energy. Rather than launching a separate object to stop a drone, the system can immediately respond as soon as a threat is detected and proceed with action.

Tobias is particularly excited about lasers because of their speed, accuracy, and low cost, especially when used as the final element in a larger defense system.

“To actually eliminate threats in the final stage, you have to detect them, target them, and bring them down all within a few seconds.”

A founding team with expertise in lasers, software, and industrialization

Ground A was started by three people already working in defense technology.

The company sits at the point where the expertise Tobias and his co-founders developed over many years comes together.

Roland Spiegelhalder, his co-founder and COO, spent about ten years at laser manufacturer TRUMPF, working on advanced laser applications in the United States. Tobias also spent time at TRUMPF and holds a PhD in engineering, with expertise in materials engineering, manufacturing, and industrialization.

During his 15-year career in the corporate sector, he oversaw highly sophisticated machinery and large-scale industrial projects, including systems used in both the aerospace and ammunition industries.

The shift to directed energy was not as great a step as it might appear.

Before that, Tobias and Roland had used lasers for industrial purposes such as welding. Although the problem they faced was different, the technological link was obvious: they could control energy accurately enough to affect a material from a distance.

Daniel Hariri, the third co-founder and CTO, provided the software and robotics knowledge. Tobias had known him since university, where Daniel studied computer science. Today, Daniel heads Ground A’s software and robotics work as CTO, while Roland oversees optics and hardware.

The three founders have the abilities Tobias believes are necessary to rapidly turn an idea into a working reality, namely software, optics, engineering, hardware, and industrialization.

That point is particularly important to Tobias because his career has involved less work developing technology in isolation and more work taking advanced products from concept through prototype and then to large-scale production.

Ground A was set up in January 2026; by August, the team had already been working on it for about seven months, and that rapid pace was the main reason Tobias decided to found the company.

“We want to achieve what others are achieving in years within months.”

Why the hardest part might be the software

Although the laser is the most striking feature of Ground A’s technology, Tobias always returns to the software.

Spotting a small object is difficult and, indeed, it's even harder to keep a system focused on something that moves quickly and unpredictably.

That is why Ground A is developing its own models for optical tracking and targeting; the software must account for the drone's movement, system performance, and changing environmental conditions. Tobias states that they have demonstrated their tracking technology to both the German armed forces and Ukraine, and the development was carried out in-house.

Tobias describes Ground A as a company mainly focused on software.

The system can take action thanks to the hardware, but it is the software that determines whether it can locate the correct target, track it accurately, and respond quickly enough to make a difference.

The system is intended to automate detection and targeting tasks, with a human making the final decision at the point of engagement in accordance with European requirements. The aim is therefore not to remove people from the process altogether, but to handle the aspects of the response in which machine speed matters.

This matters when a human operator has only a short time to respond. Rather than requiring someone to manually search for and track a small, quickly moving object, the technology can carry out that task continuously and then pass the final decision to the operator.

For Tobias, autonomy is not merely a useful addition; it is essential if the system is to be effective in dealing with threats that move faster than people can handle manually.

“We are 70-80% a software company.”

The race between drones and counter-drone systems is always changing

No defensive technology can continue to function indefinitely.

When one side comes up with a countermeasure, the other side then looks for a way around it. Tobias believes that drone warfare will work in the same way.

A good example is the development of fiber-optic drones, which remain in contact with their operator through a physical cable rather than radio signals. This poses a problem for systems that are intended to jam communications.

The way Ground A's optical approach works is not greatly affected by how the drone communicates; the system detects the drone physically, so changes to the communication technology do not prevent it from detecting the drone.

Tobias and the Ground A team are already considering the next countermeasure.

If laser defense becomes common, drone makers will likely start designing drones to resist lasers. They might use different materials or add reflective surfaces. Weather already affects how light travels through the air.

At present, Ground A is developing an approach that can cope with various optical conditions rather than depending on a single setup. Tobias points out that this flexibility is particularly important for Ukrainian units, since they have already experienced the limitations of the older laser systems.

The main point is that Ground A can’t simply produce a product once and consider its job done; defense technology must constantly evolve because threats are always changing.

This makes the development process very different from most other industries. The product roadmap depends not just on what customers want next, but also on how threats might change after today’s solution is in place.

“It will always remain a cat-and-mouse game: there will always be drone development and countermeasures.”

Making defense technology compact and scalable

Performance is only part of Ground A's engineering challenge.

A defense system may be technically impressive and still be difficult to deploy if it is too large, too heavy, or too tightly tied to one platform.

That’s why Ground A has focused on making its first system compact. Tobias says the current design fits on a standard Euro pallet. This means the technology can be used on many different platforms, not just large vehicles or fixed installations.

The company sees uses for its system in everything from fixed infrastructure to vehicles and unmanned ground systems. But Tobias points out that fitting the hardware is only half the challenge.

Modern defense systems also need to work with the command-and-control setups that militaries already use. So, Ground A designed its technology to connect at both the software and hardware levels, instead of working alone.

The company figured out these requirements by talking to people before fully committing to the product. Tobias and his co-founders met with defense contractors, the German armed forces, and Ukrainian brigades to learn what an effective system really needs to be like in practice.

Two main themes kept coming up: how quickly the system can target and how well it integrates.

A good system had to spot an FPV drone fast enough to make a difference, but it also had to fit into the equipment, platforms, and defense layers customers already use.

For Tobias, this is where his industrial experience matters. Building advanced hardware isn’t solely about making a prototype work. It’s about making sure the technology can be produced, moved, installed, and used at scale.

“We want a system, software and hardware-wise, that can fully integrate into different layers.”

Leaving the corporate world to move faster

Before starting Ground A, Tobias had a corporate career that many would call highly successful.

He spent about 15 years working with advanced industrial technologies and became a managing director, overseeing several hundred employees and about €300 million in revenue. He could have stayed in that role.

Instead, he and his co-founders left their comfortable jobs to start from scratch. Part of what motivated them was the desire to move faster.

Tobias wanted what he describes as the freedom to “rip off the chains of a corporate” and focus on solving the problem rather than managing internal bureaucracy, politics, and the question of which department should be responsible.

He thinks that what Ground A did in its first seven months would have taken about two and a half years in a big company. After 15 years in that world, he knew its strengths and weaknesses well enough to want to do things differently.

But speed wasn’t the only reason for the change. A bigger reason was the rapidly evolving security situation.

Seeing the war in Ukraine and how quickly drone warfare was changing convinced Tobias and his co-founders that the problem was too important to ignore. They had already noticed where the technology was going, and the gap between available drones and effective defenses was getting more serious.

An early Ground A pitch deck even included a picture of a drone flying over Munich’s Oktoberfest. Tobias says investors first suggested taking it out because it seemed too extreme. Later, one of those investors called him back and said that on reflection they were probably right.

“We want to bring the solution to the market in the shortest amount of time.”

The threat is moving past the battlefield

Tobias thinks Europe still mostly sees drone threats as a Ukraine issue, but that this will change soon.

In other parts of the world, drones have already been used against police and prisons. Incidents at European airports and critical infrastructure show that drones can cause problems even without a traditional military conflict.

The main problem is how easy drones are to get. They’re cheap, widely available, and getting more advanced. It takes far less skill and money to turn them into a real threat than missiles, aircraft, or other complex military tech. That changes how people think about risk.

Ground A is starting with FPV drones because Tobias sees an urgent gap in current defenses. But he doesn’t think that will be the company’s only focus for long.

He points to two other areas where directed energy could matter more in the future: space infrastructure.

The details may change, but the main idea stays the same: as cheap autonomous systems get better and more common, defense will need scalable ways to respond.

“Unfortunately, this is just the beginning.”

From one system to a wider defense platform

To Tobias, five years feels like a very long time. With how fast the industry is moving, he jokes that it feels more like 50 years.

Ground A’s top priority right now is its first product, the GA1000, which targets drones in the last mile radius. After that, Tobias expects the company to develop more systems with longer range and different deployment options.

The plan isn’t to just build one stationary laser and stop. Ground A wants its technology to work in many settings and on different platforms, possibly including armored vehicles, uncrewed ground vehicles, ships, and fixed sites.

At the same time, the company is preparing for uses that connect ground and space, and even systems that work in orbit.

All these plans are tied together by the same core platform: detection, tracking, software, optics, and directed energy.

For Tobias, success means building a technology base that can change as threats change. Today’s challenge might be small drones, but tomorrow’s could be something else.

Ground A is working fast so it doesn’t have to wait for the next threat to appear before responding.

“Five years feels more like 50 years with the speed of the development we are undertaking.”

Quick-fire round

A tool you can’t live without?

"Books."

How do you recharge?

“Every morning, I do a workout. Before starting my corporate career, I played ice hockey, and today CrossFit and running are part of my daily routine.”

Founder or start-up that you admire:

“Quantum Systems. They were one of the first companies to recognize what drones could become, move into defense, and then expand from a successful product into a much larger and more profitable company.”

Advice that stuck:

“Don’t stop when you’re tired. Just finish.”

Building defense at the speed of the threat

Small drones have already reshaped the battlefield, and the same technology is now important for airports, critical infrastructure, and civilian security. Ground A’s answer is to combine software, optics, and directed energy in systems that are accurate, mobile, and scalable.

Right now it’s all about moving fast enough to matter. The company has gone from founding to its first product in a matter of months, but its ambitions stretch well beyond today's FPV drones. Check out their work here.