Special Report: Syos Aerospace aims to scale production, international operations

The SM400 USV has a range of up to 950 n miles. (Syos Aerospace)

New Zealand-based unmanned systems developer Syos Aerospace plans to increase production capacity and expand its international presence following its first institutional capital raise in September.

Syos CEO and founder Samuel Vye told Janes in October that the decision to raise capital follows multiple contract wins and increasing customer demand across multiple markets. The company secured contracts with customers in Canada, New Zealand, Ukraine, and the United Kingdom, including a GBP30 million (USD40 million) agreement with the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) in 2025.

“The capital will expand our global footprint, invest further in our already very strong R&D [research and development] capacity, and increase production capacity to meet growing customer demand,” Vye said. “We're going to utilise this capital injection to go harder, go faster, and go quicker – we can increase the depth of the engineering capacity and R&D to do more work-streams in parallel,” he added.

The company, however, declined to disclose the amount of capital raised, citing confidentiality.

Expanding capacity

Founded in New Zealand in 2021, Syos established a UK site in late 2023 and now operates manufacturing facilities in Fareham in the UK and Mount Maunganui in New Zealand. The company employs nearly 200 people globally and also maintains a presence in Ukraine.

Vye said the new investment would increase production capacity in the UK and New Zealand to meet rising demand. He added that Syos has established production lines across multiple domains and has delivered more than 150 unmanned surface vessels (USVs) to its customers.