{"id":19873,"date":"2026-09-30T12:28:02","date_gmt":"2026-09-30T09:28:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/teaduspark.ee\/?p=19873"},"modified":"2026-09-30T12:50:34","modified_gmt":"2026-09-30T09:50:34","slug":"startup-story-nato-diana-estonian-accelerator-x-vig-sec-drone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/teaduspark.ee\/en\/startup-story-nato-diana-estonian-accelerator-x-vig-sec-drone\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2028Startup Story: NATO DIANA Estonian Accelerator x Vig-Sec Drone"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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Vig-Sec Drone<\/b> develops Suite ACRE, a command-and-control platform designed to help defence, emergency services, and critical infrastructure operators safely coordinate drones, crewed aircraft, counter-UAS systems, and other sensors within a shared operational picture.<\/p>

Founded in Galicia in 2019 by Rub\u00e9n Gil Font\u00e1n and Noelia Gil Font\u00e1n, the company combines operational experience with multidisciplinary technical expertise. Rub\u00e9n brings a background in Spanish special operations and experience as a NATO UAS instructor, and together the founders have built a multidisciplinary company that translates real operational procedures into deployable technology.<\/p>

How did you\u00a0come up with\u00a0the idea\u00a0to create\u00a0a startup?\u00a0<\/b><\/p>

The idea came directly from our operational experience. We saw that organisations were rapidly acquiring drones and sensors, but lacked a shared digital layer to coordinate them safely with crewed aviation and other operational assets, so we decided to turn field procedures into scalable software.<\/p>

What has\u00a0been the biggest challenge and the biggest win\u00a0so far?\u00a0<\/b><\/p>

Our greatest challenge has been transforming highly complex operational requirements into a platform that remains intuitive, interoperable and reliable in real deployments. An early lesson was that trying to address too many opportunities at once could dilute our focus. Our biggest wins have been seeing Suite ACRE adopted by more than 2,000 users, validated alongside crewed and uncrewed aircraft in NATO and national exercises, and progressing in NATO DIANA\u2019s accelerator.<\/p>

What\u00a0sets\u00a0your\u00a0startup\u00a0apart\u00a0from\u00a0competitors?\u00a0<\/b><\/p>

Suite ACRE is manufacturer-, sensor-, and communications-agnostic, allowing different drones, crewed aircraft, C-UAS systems, and external command platforms to operate through one common layer. More importantly, it is not simply another visualisation dashboard, it dynamically supports airspace coordination and reconfiguration and has been designed from real operational experience and validated in demanding field environments.<\/p>

Why\u00a0did\u00a0you\u00a0choose\u00a0NATO DIANA\u00a0Estonian\u00a0accelerator?\u00a0<\/b><\/p>

We chose NATO DIANA because it offers more than conventional acceleration: access to operational users, testing environments, and a pathway to adoption across the Alliance. For us, it is the right environment to validate Suite ACRE against real allied requirements and accelerate its transition from a proven national capability to a deployable NATO-wide solution.<\/p>

Where do you see your startup in 12 months or 5 years?\u00a0<\/b><\/p>

Within one year, we expect Suite ACRE to be deployed and evaluated by several NATO nations, with repeatable commercial and Rapid Adoption pathways already in place. Within five years, we aim to become an international reference for the orchestration of low- and medium-altitude airspace across defence, emergency response and critical infrastructure. Our ambition is for Suite ACRE to become the trusted software layer connecting heterogeneous aerial systems, sensors and command platforms across allied operations.<\/p>

Who\u00a0will\u00a0be\u00a0the\u00a0next\u00a0defence\u00a0or\u00a0dual-use\u00a0unicorn?\u00a0<\/b><\/p>

We are naturally biased, but our answer is Vig-Sec Drone. The next defence unicorn will not necessarily be the company producing one more drone or sensor, but the company providing the trusted, interoperable software layer that enables thousands of heterogeneous systems to operate safely together, and that is precisely the position we are building with Suite ACRE.<\/p>

The NATO DIANA Estonian accelerator is implemented by Tehnopol together with Sparkup Tartu Science Park.<\/p>

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Vig-Sec Drone develops Suite ACRE, a command-and-control platform designed to help defence, emergency services, and critical infrastructure operators safely coordinate drones, crewed aircraft, counter-UAS systems, and other sensors within a shared operational picture. Founded in Galicia in 2019 by Rub\u00e9n Gil Font\u00e1n and Noelia Gil Font\u00e1n, the company combines operational experience with multidisciplinary technical expertise. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":19067,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[242,193,240],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19873","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-military","category-news","category-nato-diana-estonian-accelerator"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/teaduspark.ee\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19873","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/teaduspark.ee\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/teaduspark.ee\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teaduspark.ee\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teaduspark.ee\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19873"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/teaduspark.ee\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19873\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19877,"href":"https:\/\/teaduspark.ee\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19873\/revisions\/19877"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teaduspark.ee\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19067"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/teaduspark.ee\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19873"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teaduspark.ee\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19873"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teaduspark.ee\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19873"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}