Neros flew over a US military jammer, hovered for about ten minutes, and beat the jamming, with soldiers then shown a jar of Smucker's strawberry jam as payload.
Neros moved into a 250,000 square foot factory, aiming to become the first American drone company able to build a million drones a year.
Soren Monroe-Anderson says the Pentagon's talk of buying a million drones in a year or two is unrealistic, and the industry needs two to three years to deliver.
Neros founder explains the plan to build a million American drones
Neros is betting that America can only deter China if it builds small drones at huge scale, and that means a vertically integrated factory free of Chinese parts. Ukraine proved FPV drones work in war, and US demand is now surging. The constraints are talent, components and production discipline rather than the technology, which has already beaten jamming in tests.
Takeaways
Neros is building for a million drones a year. Its new 250,000 square foot factory adds component manufacturing to assembly and test. Neros wants to be the first American drone company at that scale. Monroe-Anderson admits the building still needs construction, capital and, above all, talent.
Growth has been extreme and hiring is the constraint. Neros moved into its old facility in March 2024 and needed six months to get a real assembly line running. The team went from 16 people to about 125 in 2025. Recruiting eased after the Series B and government contracts.
Vertical integration is the answer to China's scale. China makes far more drones, roughly 70m a year by Morse's figure. Monroe-Anderson points to SpaceX's Starlink terminal factory as the model. Neros's hardest task has been sourcing critical components free of China, and component manufacturing for others starts in 2026.
Combat tests show the drone beats jamming. In Alaska the drone hovered in front of a US military jammer for about ten minutes and beat it. Marines in Okinawa said it extended their strike range from one kilometer to 20 kilometers.
A million-drone government order is unrealistic near term. The Pentagon now treats small drones as a priority and has talked of buying a million in a year or two. Monroe-Anderson says industry needs two to three years. He says Neros leads other FPV makers on proven production.
Small supply failures can stall a ramp. A $5 part with a six week lead time held up thousands of drones. Neros also under-allowed engineering time before its first production ground station in 2025. He wants defense firms to be more honest about proven capacity.
FPV keeps a human in control. Monroe-Anderson argues autonomous systems struggle with camouflaged targets, while FPV drones keep an operator deciding. He expects the technology to become easier for every warfighter to use. He also defends defense work as moral.
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