Reach Power and Gambit win OECIF funding to build drone swarms that never need to land
What's the deal? Reach Power and GambitDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → have won a funding award through the Operational Energy Capability Improvement Fund (OECIF), the US Department of Defense's premier joint operational energy investment programme. The two companies will develop SWARM — Scalable Wireless Aerial Recharging Matrix — a system that combines wireless power beaming with AI-driven swarm coordination to let military drones recharge mid-flight without landing or human intervention.
Reach provides the wireless power-beaming technology, which transmits targeted RF energy to drones at designated waypoints in the air. Gambit contributes AI-enabled orchestration that lets individual drones factor battery state, mission profile, and charging availability into real-time decisions.
Why now? Small military drones — known as Group 1 systems — typically carry enough battery for about 30 minutes of flight. By the time a swarm is airborne and coordinated, usable mission time is already shrinking. Scaling up with bigger batteries defeats the purpose: the added cost, weight, and logistics overhead erases the advantage of small, cheap, expendable systems.
The battery problem compounds in contested environments, where resupply becomes dangerous. Drone hit rates in active combat zones hover around 30%, partly because of these energy constraints. As modern warfare shifts toward autonomous operations, persistent airborne coverage has become a strategic priority.
What could go wrong? Wireless power beaming at scale remains an emerging technology. Transmitting enough energy to recharge drones mid-air — reliably, safely, and in contested electromagnetic environments — is an engineering challenge that hasn't been proven in operational conditions. Coordinating autonomous energy management across a swarm adds another layer of complexity.
The specific funding amount was not disclosed, which makes it hard to gauge how far the project can advance before needing additional investment.
The signal: Reach Power sits at breakout stage according to Dealroom, suggesting its wireless power-beaming technology is moving beyond early R&D into real-world validation — and Pentagon funding through OECIF accelerates that trajectory considerably. The award underscores a broader shift in US defence investment toward solving the logistics bottleneck that limits drone swarm endurance, rather than simply building more airframes.
Read more: Business Wire
