Sky Spy, a dual-use technology company developing compact signal intelligence (SIGINT) systems for contested and congested environments, has raised $1.6 million in an oversubscribed pre-seed round to go-to-market, launch production and expand its team to deliver fully autonomous AI-driven systems.
Sky Spy was founded to address a critical gap in SIGINT in today’s saturated signal environments. Lessons from the war in Ukraine have highlighted that forces contend with thousands of civilian, commercial, and military transmitters. In practice, many units have been forced to lean on visual intelligence due to the failure of traditional ground and airborne SIGINT to deliver reliable, timely results in dense, contested environments – leading to 80% of small, high-priority targets being missed.
The announcement follows the successful frontline validation of Sky Spy’s first product, Agent 001, conducted with active military units in Ukraine, where the system proved its ability to detect and geolocate hostile emitters – including UAS control stations and jammers – in one of the world’s most saturated and contested electromagnetic environments. Soldiers described Agent 001 as the first solution of its kind that has proven its capability in live combat situations.
Founded by a Ukraine-origin team, and now operating across the US and EU countries, Sky Spy’s multinational team combines technical expertise with operational experience from active combat zones.
“Sky Spy was built by people who’ve seen how unreliable intelligence costs lives,” said Arsenii Hurtavtsov, CEO of Sky Spy. “Our mission is simple: to give forces real-time awareness in the spectrum – because the side that dominates the spectrum dominates the war.”
Sky Spy’s flagship payload, Agent 001, turns small drones into autonomous spectrum hunters by combining RF intelligence with visual confirmation. Weighing just over 500 grams, it detects, classifies, and localises radio emitters in real time – providing actionable intelligence in environments where legacy systems fail. The system uses proprietary filtering algorithms, custom RF hardware, and unique combat data to deliver market-leading precision even under jamming and GPS-denied conditions.
Unlike existing systems designed for large aircraft or static networks, Agent 001 runs its full signal-processing pipeline onboard, allowing immediate response without external compute. It integrates seamlessly with any existing COP/C2 infrastructure at a fraction of the price of legacy SIGINT platforms, making it practical for both defence and dual-use customers.
Sky Spy has already attracted the attention of several world-leading UAS producers and is in the process of integrating its technology into next-generation tactical ISR platforms, introducing a new capability and data layer for intelligence operations. The company is carefully selecting its first partners to deploy the system at scale.
The pre-seed round was co-led by Expeditions Fund and Superangel, joined by Freedom Fund, Sunfish Partners, Crosscourt Ventures, and Material Ventures.
Andrzej Rościszewski, Investment Associate at Expeditions Fund said: “We were looking for a while to find a product that could radically improve signal intelligence in contested environments. SkySpy's initial product, trained on battlefield electromagnetic data, offers an attritable, airborne radio-reconnaissance platform, which aims to solve one of the most pressing problems in today's battlefield. The team is highly motivated, brings strong credentials from their prior work on C2 systems, and has already validated their solution with end users. We look forward to supporting their international expansion.”
Jaan Kokk, Senior Associate at Superangel said: “From the first meeting, SkySpy impressed us with their deep technical talent and real operational insight. We believe they have the rare ability to move fast, solve hard problems, and deliver capabilities that work where it matters.”
