Launch YC: Impact Drones: Air Defense as a Service for Civilian Infrastructure | Y Combinator

\n\n**TL;DR:** Half this batch is building AI agents. Your agents live in data centers. And these sites are now under threat. In March, drones took three AWS data centers offline in the Middle East and a dozen core cloud services with them. **Amazon lost 200 million USD in one day.** We sell a box you put next to anything you'd rather keep: an interceptor pierces its own lid, and the threat stops existing. We'll keep your agents running.\n\n**Why now:** The drone threat went industrial and air defense math didn't.\n\n**A single patriot missile costs more than 1m USD to shoot down a drone worth 30k USD.** Critical infrastructure needs a defense system that can be deployed at scale without losing the cost-per-interception battle.\n\n**What we're building:** a cell holding autonomous interceptors, always charged, always ready for when a threat arises. Unlike jamming, our system physically intercepts the threat. Unlike conventional air-defense systems, it is designed specifically for protecting civilian infrastructure affordably and at scale.\n\n**Why us:** two founders who ship hardware fast.\n\n[@Jasper Lortije](https://bookface.ycombinator.com/user/3245067): aerospace engineer (MSc at TU Delft), previously founded a Dutch company building GNSS-denied visual navigation for autonomous systems.\n\n[@Alessandro Fiume](https://bookface.ycombinator.com/user/3677968): sales and operations, ex Bloomberg, MSBA at Columbia.\n\n**Our ask:** intros to the people who own the airspace problem: data center security and infrastructure leads (hyperscalers and neoclouds especially, your uptime now has an air defense dependency), airport operations directors, and energy grid security teams. And if you're building agents: we're literally your uptime insurance, come say hi. [jasper@impact-drones.com](mailto:jasper@impact-drones.com) & [alessandro@impact-drones.com](mailto:alessandro@impact-drones.com)","state":"public","tagline":"Containerized drone interception for airports, ports, data centers and power plants.","created_at":"2026-08-04T18:02:22.616Z","company":{"id":32188,"name":"IMPACT Drones","logo":"https://bookface-images.s3.amazonaws.com/small_logos/51e28a022e68117f55cef18f71defaef380f1766.png","batch":"s2026","tags":["Artificial Intelligence","Hardware","Drones","Swarm Robotics"],"url":"https://www.impact-drones.com","slug":"impact-drones","description":"Air Defense as a Service for Civilian Infrastructure."},"user":{"name":"Jasper Lortije","avatar":"https://bookface-images.s3.amazonaws.com/avatars/a658fea832c15f888808bdf1131fe0fc62b3df85.jpg"},"total_vote_count":5,"slug":"SKo-impact-drones-air-defense-as-a-service-for-civilian-infrastructure","launch_embed_url":"https://www.ycombinator.com/launches/SKo-impact-drones-air-defense-as-a-service-for-civilian-infrastructure/upvote_embed.svg","twitter_share_url":"https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?text=IMPACT+Drones+just+launched+on+%40ycombinator%27s+Launch+YC%21%0A%0AImpact+Drones%3A+Air+Defense+as+a+Service+for+Civilian+Infrastructure.+Check+them+out%3A&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ycombinator.com%2Flaunches%2FSKo-impact-drones-air-defense-as-a-service-for-civilian-infrastructure","sanitized_title":"Impact Drones: Air Defense as a Service for Civilian Infrastructure","ycdc_launch_url":"https://www.ycombinator.com/launches/SKo-impact-drones-air-defense-as-a-service-for-civilian-infrastructure","url":"https://www.ycombinator.com/launches/SKo-impact-drones-air-defense-as-a-service-for-civilian-infrastructure","share_config":{"url":"/media/?type=post&id=108922&key=user_uploads/3245067/59dabfe9-939e-47d1-aacc-0da9270fe8fe"},"share_image":null,"approved_at":"2026-08-05T16:36:34Z","approved_by":{"id":89898,"name":"Steven Pham","hnid":"sandslash"}},"userUpvoteMap":{},"ycStaff":false,"latestLaunch":true},"url":"/launches/SKo-impact-drones-air-defense-as-a-service-for-civilian-infrastructure","version":"0422cec6260a722cb13947cf8777ae7852945952","encryptHistory":false,"clearHistory":false,"rails_context":{"railsEnv":"production","inMailer":false,"i18nLocale":"en","i18nDefaultLocale":"en","href":"https://www.ycombinator.com/launches/SKo-impact-drones-air-defense-as-a-service-for-civilian-infrastructure","location":"/launches/SKo-impact-drones-air-defense-as-a-service-for-civilian-infrastructure","scheme":"https","host":"www.ycombinator.com","port":null,"pathname":"/launches/SKo-impact-drones-air-defense-as-a-service-for-civilian-infrastructure","search":null,"httpAcceptLanguage":null,"applyBatchLong":"Fall 2026","applyBatchShort":"F2026","applyDeadlineShort":"July...