Manna raises $50M to scale drone delivery to 40 bases across the US and Europe
What's the deal? Manna, an Irish drone delivery startup, has raised $50 million in a Series B round, bringing total funding to $110 million. The capital will fund expansion to 40 operational bases across the US and Europe and grow the team from 170 to over 570 people.
Founded in 2019 and headquartered in Dublin, Manna has completed over 250,000 regulated commercial flights across Ireland, Finland, and Texas. Orders arrive in under three minutes, with CO₂ emissions running 85% lower than road delivery.
Why now? Manna has built something rare in drone delivery: proof of commercial viability. The company says it is the only air delivery operator globally to demonstrate positive unit economics for residential last-mile delivery — a milestone that has eluded better-funded rivals for years. In Dublin West, 60% of households now order by air regularly, a figure that speaks to genuine adoption rather than pilot programmes.
The company has also expanded its platform partnerships to include Uber, joining Deliveroo, Just Eat, and DoorDash — meaning customers order through apps they already use, removing the friction of adoption.
What could go wrong? Scaling from a handful of Irish towns and one US state to 40 bases across two continents is an enormous operational leap. Regulatory complexity varies sharply across US states and European countries, and airspace integration remains a live challenge for the entire industry. Manna designs, builds, and operates its full stack from Dublin — an advantage in control and iteration, but a potential bottleneck as headcount triples.
The drone delivery category has also seen well-funded companies — including Amazon Prime Air and Alphabet's Wing — spend years and billions without achieving the unit economics Manna claims. Independent verification of those economics would strengthen the case considerably.
The signal: Manna's raise reflects a broader maturation in drone delivery. The companies that survived the hype cycle by focusing on operational reality rather than demo flights are now pulling away. Positive unit economics, platform integrations with the world's largest delivery apps, and a Net Promoter Score of 86 are the kind of metrics that attract infrastructure-scale capital. If Manna can replicate its Dublin West model across 40 bases, it will have built something genuinely transformative in last-mile logistics.
Sources:
Manna
Business Wire
The Irish Times
A.M.
