Manna Bets Low-Cost Airline Economics Will Win Drone Delivery
Manna founder Bobby Healy tells This Week in Startups that drone delivery is becoming a low-cost operations business, not a novelty market, and argues his Dublin-based company can win by applying airline-style discipline to delivery networks. Healy says Manna’s 300,000 completed deliveries, claimed 97% Irish-weather availability and new $50 million Series B position it to expand in the U.S. as regulation opens up. Theseus co-founder Ian Laffey adds a defense-side version of the same argument from Kyiv: drone scale depends less on exotic aircraft than on cheap, reliable systems that can keep working when GPS and supply chains fail.
This Week in Startups·May 27, 2026·19 min read
