Alta Ares, a French company with a Ukrainian office, takes six of 16 NATO counter-UAS lots

French defence tech company Alta Ares has won six of the 16 lots in a NATO framework contract for the supply of counter-uncrewed aircraft systems, the best result among all participants, Interfax-Ukraine reports.

NATO has added Alta Ares’ counter-drone systems to its Drone Edge Marketplace catalogue. Alliance countries can order them without separate tenders. The framework agreement covers both purchasing and renting equipment.

Jamie O’Connor-Delbert, Alta Ares’s director for engagement with the EU, NATO and Eastern European countries, said the company’s own developments helped it during the NCIA evaluation: GAMMA ISTAR, Pixel Lock and CYCLOPS C2. According to him, they were built and trained, among other things, on data from the Ukrainian battlefield.

Alta Ares CEO and co-founder Adrian Canter described the company’s system as a package combining artificial intelligence, sensors, control tools and interceptors. It is designed to counter strike UAVs of the Shahed type and loitering munitions.

In Ukraine, Alta Ares works with many domestic manufacturers and has a local software development office. One of its production workshops, where the company makes its own drones, is also located here.

As of August 2026, about 20 engineers worked in the Ukrainian office, and Alta Ares planned to triple the local team by the end of 2026. The company intended to direct a fifth of the €50 million investment round it raised in the spring to developing the office, operations and scaling up production.