Manna Aero, the Irish-based autonomous drone startup, was a smaller player in the United States. Founder and CEO Bobby Healy told TechCrunch that’s about to change.
The startup, powered by the 50 million dollars in venture capital it raised in April, said Wednesday it is building a U.S. operations and manufacturing center in Tulsa, Oklahoma, that will employ about 1,000 people over the next few years. Construction of the plant is underway and Healy expects construction to begin there in about a year.
As construction continues, the company will focus on scaling its operations team to about 200 to 300 people over the next 12 months, according to Healy. The pace of hiring at the plant will depend on the pace of growth outside of Tulsa, he said, noting that the company is evaluating six other U.S. cities. If all goes well, Manna will begin entering these cities by the end of 2027.
The ultimate goal is to turn Manna Aero into a major drone delivery company in the US that competes with Zipline, Amazon and Google’s Wing, among others.
“It’s just the size of the market here, consumer behavior and the fact that the aggregators (DoorDash, Uber Eats) have established the market so well and are doing so well,” Healy said, explaining the US expansion. “The United States has the market that everybody wants.”
Manna uses automated, remote-controlled drones that don’t land. Instead, they lower the package into a tether, the same technique used by Wing and Zipline. Manna has a hybrid business model. It is essentially a delivery-as-a-service company that charges per flight. However, it has different ways to achieve this, including through partnerships with DoorDash, Deliveroo and Uber Eats in Europe, as well as direct partnerships with businesses and its own consumer-facing app.
Manna is still headquartered in Ireland, where its R&D, administrative and manufacturing operations are based. But drone delivery is no longer operating in the country. Manna pulled out of its drone delivery business last month citing a lack of urban planning regulations which would allow it to scale there.
Instead, the startup places its capital and resources in the United States. The company hired former Ryanair CMO Kenny Jacobs as its executive chairman and chairman to lead the expansion.
Healy said the policies of the Trump administration and the FAA have given the industry a “turbo boost” in the country.
“It turns into raw investments,” he said. “A company like us, we wouldn’t have plans to grow in the United States until the environment was ready from a regulatory standpoint to start growing, and so we decided very clearly that now is the time to put every penny we have into the U.S.”
Healy pointed to growth at Amazon, Wing and Zipline over the past year as evidence of those policies.
“We’re probably a little behind the curve, but we’ll catch up quickly,” he said.
Manna is not entirely new to the United States. The startup began operations in 2023 in the AllianceTexas Mobility Innovation Zone, which is part of a master-planned community near Dallas, Texas, developed by real estate developer Hillwood. Healy said Manna has expanded into the greater Dallas-Fort Worth area and plans to continue scaling there over the next year.
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