Israeli Startups KELA and EYESATOP Win Defense Ministry Contract for Autonomous Attack Drone System
Two relatively young Israeli startups, KELA and EYESATOP, have been selected by the Israeli Ministry of Defense to supply the autonomous control and management system for the IDF's offensive drone swarms, known as the "Digital Bat." The companies received official notification on Tuesday that they will exclusively develop the national platform for managing, controlling, and operating the IDF's attack drone array. The American company Ondus, which includes several Israeli drone firms such as Aerobotics and Iron Drone, also competed but did not win the tender.
This contract follows a previous tender won by the Israeli company Extend, which is preparing for a NASDAQ IPO valued at $1.5 billion. KELA and EYESATOP will jointly lead the system's assembly, integration, and operation. KELA, founded after October 7 by Hamutal Meridor and Alon Dror, will provide the open and modular architecture for the system. KELA recently completed a $200 million funding round and offers a solution that collects data from various military and commercial sources, processes it in real time, and presents it on a unified command interface.
EYESATOP, led by former Unit 8200 veterans Udi Oster and Daniel Almog, will supply the operational "brain" of the project through its command and control system. This system enables a single commander to manage multiple drones simultaneously, monitor real-time activity, and rapidly close sensor-to-shooter loops. EYESATOP's technology is already widely used in IDF infantry brigades, accumulating over half a million operational flight hours in complex combat environments.
The combination of KELA's open architecture and EYESATOP's operational system will allow the defense establishment to significantly accelerate procurement, quickly integrate new technological capabilities without altering core systems, and dynamically adapt attack drones to evolving battlefield threats.
