Srdjan Kovacevic, CEO & Co-Founder of Orqa: Building leading drone hardware in Europe

<p>Orqa is a Croatian company that designs and manufactures drones, components and ground stations entirely in Europe, a rare setup in an industry that mostly relies on China. Orqa now builds primarily for defence customers across NATO and the West, and shipped 250,000 products last year, a number it&#39;s on track to double in 2026.</p><p><br></p><p>Srdjan Kovacevic is CEO and Co-Founder of Orqa. He believes most Western militaries aren&#39;t ready for drone warfare yet, and that needs to change fast.</p><p><br></p><p>The Scaling Europe show is presented by Deel. Check them out here: https://get.deel.com/ruynb7o4lfjk</p><p><br></p><p>Sponsors:</p><p><br></p><p>Chargebee: https://www.chargebee.com/events/beelieve/london/2026</p><p><br></p><p>SurrealDB: https://surrealdb.com/</p><p><br></p><p>Airwallex: https://www.airwallex.com/uk?utm_source=other&amp;utm_medium=partner_referral&amp;utm_campaign=v01_emea_multi_ib_dg_prtmk_mofu_scalingeurope</p><p><br></p><p>Lovable: https://lovable.dev/</p><p><br></p><p>Timestamps:</p><p><br></p><p>0:00 - Introduction</p><p>0:15 - What Orqa builds</p><p>1:07 - Why Orqa set out to build Europe&#39;s answer to Chinese drone brands</p><p>2:36 - Why Orqa builds everything in Europe</p><p>5:03 - Orqa&#39;s current production scale</p><p>6:41 - How the war in Ukraine pulled Orqa into defence</p><p>8:05 - Why Orqa builds for NATO&#39;s future needs, not Ukraine&#39;s immediate ones</p><p>10:19 - Orqa&#39;s production numbers: 250,000 products shipped last year</p><p>13:16 - Orqa&#39;s biggest supply chain bottleneck</p><p>15:40 - Why the AI boom is causing a new chip shortage for Orqa</p><p>19:10 - Ukraine&#39;s drone warfare numbers</p><p>20:36 - How drone warfare has transformed the battlefield</p>