Orqa Ranks Second in Pentagon Drone Competition, Marking Major U.S. Breakthrough

ORQA US has delivered one of the strongest results yet in its push into the U.S. defense market, finishing second in the Close Quarters Battle category of Gauntlet II, part of the Pentagon’s Drone Dominance Program.

The company scored 82.8 points, finishing behind Neros with 88.1 points and ahead of XTEND Reality at 80.2, Vector at 78.2 and ModalAI at 74.3, according to the Gauntlet II leaderboard.

The result puts ORQA US among the top performers in a Pentagon initiative designed to rapidly identify, test and procure large numbers of low-cost tactical drones.

For Orqa, whose technology was originally developed in Osijek, Croatia, the result represents a significant step from a European FPV technology company into large-scale U.S. defense procurement.

From Croatian technology to U.S. production

Orqa was founded in Osijek in 2018 by Srdjan Kovacevic, Ivan Jelusic and Vlatko Matijevic, initially building its reputation around FPV technology. The company says its engineering and European production remain based in Osijek. 

Its American expansion took a major step in May with the establishment of Orqa U.S. LLC, a strategic venture between Orqa and U.S. defense company By Light Professional IT Services.

Orqa U.S. is structured as a U.S.-owned and independently controlled company headquartered in Oakland, California, with production operations at By Light’s 180,000-square-foot manufacturing facility in Port Orange, Florida. The company has positioned the operation around a fully American supply chain and U.S.-based production for government customers. 

That structure is important for the Drone Dominance Program, where the Pentagon is placing increasing emphasis not only on drone performance but also on the ability of suppliers to manufacture systems rapidly and at scale.

Orqa beat a highly competitive field

Getting to Gauntlet II was already a significant hurdle.

The Pentagon initially invited 49 companies with approximately 79 drone systems to the Phase II qualifier at Camp Grayling, Michigan. Only 19 companies advanced to Gauntlet II at Fort Carson, Colorado. 

Those companies then faced a manufacturing test before reaching the final competition.

Each invited participant was required to fulfill an order for 120 drones equipped with lethality payloads in approximately five weeks, testing whether companies could move beyond prototypes and demonstrate real production capacity. 

ORQA US successfully cleared that stage before going on to finish second in the Close Quarters Battle competition.

The result places it ahead of several established defense technology companies, including XTEND Reality, Vector and ModalAI, in one of the two primary Gauntlet II mission areas.

Major production orders come next

The commercial significance of the result could be substantial. The Drone Dominance Program has stated that after Gauntlet II it plans to place orders for a combined 60,000 drones from the top-performing companies. 

Official Pentagon competition documents say top Gauntlet II performers will receive production orders of no fewer than 4,000 drones, while program presentations previously indicated that the highest-ranked performers could receive substantially larger allocations. 

The Pentagon has not yet publicly confirmed ORQA US’s final production allocation, so the number of systems associated with its second-place result remains to be announced.

Phase II of the Drone Dominance Program has an indicated procurement budget of approximately $300 million, with further phases expected to follow as the Pentagon expands production volumes and tightens supply-chain requirements. 

For Orqa, however, the significance goes beyond the eventual size of a single order.

Less than a decade after the company was founded in eastern Croatia, technology developed by its team is now competing near the top of one of the U.S. military’s largest new tactical drone procurement initiatives.

With ORQA US providing the American manufacturing and supply-chain structure required to pursue U.S. government business at scale, the second-place Gauntlet II finish marks a major milestone in Orqa’s transformation from a Croatian FPV technology startup into an increasingly significant player in the transatlantic defense drone market.