In the summer of 2021, Dimiturious Kottas made an immeasurable move for most Silicon Valley engineers. After leaving his coveted position in Apple’s special project group, he packed his life in California and returned to Athens to set up a defense company.
Three and a half years later, his startup, Delian Alliance Industries, will monitor parts of the Greek boundary around the clock, install solar surveillance towers that detect wildfires on remote islands, and include a pipeline of other products, including hidden ocean currents designed to keep enemies in the bay.
But Cotta’s most ambitious bet is not specific technology. That means that small Greek startups can break through Europe’s infamous, split defense markets.
This may seem like today’s gambling, especially with defence technology becoming more hot than ever, but Cottas’s path to Delian has been a long way of working, as I told this editor in a recent episode of StrictlyVC Download.
After being recognized for his academic work in GPS-denied Navigation (a study that says he has been cited more than 1,400 times) in academic work at the University of Minnesota, he joined Apple in 2016 and spent on autonomous systems featuring cameras, lidars and radar. He said he couldn’t discuss the details because of the non-disclosure agreement, but the technology he co-developed in Apple’s secret department helped him to clearly see what Dellian was building.
“At the heart of autonomy is perception,” explained Cottas, explaining how machines must understand not only where the objects are, but what they are doing and what they are trying to do. “This is at the heart of autonomy and given that autonomy is at the heart of all future weapon systems, it is the core technology that will drive change in the defense industry over the next decade.”
However, it was not just technical insights that fueled the change in his career. A series of geopolitical events – looking at the conflict in Armenia-Azerbaijan. Seeing the country attempting to correct surrounding borders. And, realising how late the European army was, he began to nibble at him. “I literally lost my sleep,” he said.
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Rather than trying to build a next-generation fighter jet, Cottas began with something practical that would allow him to sell more quickly: the surveillance tower. The move appeared to have been torn from the playbook of Anduril, an arms maker eight years ago. This started with a luxury Surveillance Tower of software sold to US Customs and Border Protection.
But Dellian’s new products reveal greater ambitions. The “Interceptigon” series features hidden autonomous aircraft and sea drones and containers designed to stay dormant until a threat appears.
The most impressive example is a 2-meter suicide vessel packed into a cylinder and can be deployed several months ago on the seabed at a depth that satellites and drones cannot detect. When activated remotely, it appears that “the enemy is not from anywhere,” Cottas told TechCrunch, adding that Delian has patented the approach.
This is a model that says that Cottas does not exist elsewhere in the Western defense industry. It also attracted investors who had just provided $14 million in funding to Delian. In fact, the startup announced on Tuesday that its former backers, Air Street Capital and Marathon Venture Capital, have led the latest capital injections, bringing Dellian’s total funding to $22 million so far.
This is where the story of Cottas becomes more complicated. Despite Dellian’s technical achievements and operational success in Greece, the broader European market remains a horrifying challenge. US authorities are reportedly putting pressure on European countries to continue purchasing weapons from US costumes. Furthermore, European countries have long supported their own defense companies. This is a trend that some investors believe will make it difficult for startups like Dellian to expand across borders.
“The concerns are growing stronger in France now,” Cottas admitted, but he insisted that the landscape is changing. And as evidence that fragmentation is being overcome, he pointed to European Union initiatives such as Safe and Reim Europe, designed to promote cross-border defence cooperation.
This evidence he claims is that companies like Portuguese take bars have achieved unicorn status and that German quantum systems are competing globally. “There’s a company I grew up with. […] A tenth of what their US competitors raised, they competed in the exact same market, with European counterparts winning. ”
Naturally, the question is what Cottas thinks about Andrill, and although the founder has not respected, he does. “It’s definitely a generational company that inspires many founders and military officers on the planet,” he said.
However, he warned, assuming an early winner. “The place we stand now is like 2015 for self-driving cars. […] Imagine trying to predict the winner at the time. ”
Still, the question remains whether Greek startups, no matter how innovative they are, can convince defence facilities in France, Germany or the UK to wager national security on foreign technology. Cotta recently submitted a bid for a German bid. This is a test case for his paper that decentralized Europe can overcome through superior technology and competitive pricing.
In the meantime, what stands out from many defence tech entrepreneurs is how the mission feels about Cottas. Referring to US aerospace and defense giant Lockheed Martin, he regrets that Cottas “is not like building weapons in New Mexico, which are used on the other side of the planet.” “That’s one way of thinking, [but] It’s not that they build something they know could be used to save a brother or sister, or neighbor. ”
This sentiment could prove Dellian’s greatest asset. This is because it is shared by European entrepreneurs who view conflict as an abstract possibility. This drives its focus on low-cost, rapidly deployable systems that can be issued at scale, with an emphasis on technology that can be positioned and activated in advance as needed. It may also ultimately convince other European countries that geography is more important than nationality when it comes to defense.
In any case, Cottas’ unconventional journey from Athens to Minneapolis, Apples and Athens suggests he is content with his long odds.
There is the “benefit of building a company” in small markets on the continent known for its Vulcanization. “We’re forced to be more resilient, more efficient and relentlessly focused on building good technology at very low prices that are important in this business.”
“I think fragmentation will be overcome in the next few years.
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