Defence start-up Stendr with new high-profile hires

"The mass production of drones has made attacking far cheaper than defending, and Europe needs defence companies that can adapt fast enough to close that gap," says newly appointed engineer Erlend Kvinge Jørgensen.

Since its launch earlier this year, the Norwegian defence technology company Stendr, which develops sensor systems for detecting drones, has attracted attention in the market and across the industry.

So far, it has secured substantial investor capital, including one of the largest pre-seed rounds in Nordic defence technology at USD 5.4 million, as well as senior industry figures such as Palantir veteran Michael Kattouf, Major General (Ret.) Henning-André Frantzen and former reMarkable executive Tor Aleksander Birk.

The latest additions are Erlend Kvinge Jørgensen, PhD, Senior DSP Engineer (digital signal processing), and Arianit Pllana, Chief of Staff.

Deep technical expertise

Jørgensen joins from a role as a senior cybernetics engineer at UBIQ Aerospace, and previously spent seven years as an engineer and product manager at the radar company Equanostic.

"The mass production of drones has made attacking far cheaper than defending, and Europe needs defence companies that can adapt fast enough to close that gap. I wanted to be part of it from an early stage, and the way Stendr works suits me: moving fast and testing with customers as early as possible,"

says Jørgensen.

The company was founded by Aleksander Leonard Larsen, former co-founder of the global unicorn Sky Mavis (Axie Infinity). He is very pleased to have Jørgensen on the team.

"Erlend has spent his career in radar and signal processing, the last few years in the drone industry. That experience carries straight over to what we are building now," he says.

Driven to make a positive impact

Arianit Pllana joins from SB1 Markets, where he worked closely with Norwegian companies in capital markets. Previously, he worked in finance and strategy at T1 Energy (formerly FREYR Battery) and Play Magnus Group.

Pllana’s family fled the war in Kosovo in the 1990s, which has shaped his perspective and motivation to contribute to organisations that build products that make a positive impact on society.

"Europe has to raise both its ambition and its capacity to act if we are to preserve the security and prosperity my generation grew up with. That is a large part of why I wanted to join Stendr,"

says Pllana.

That goes to the heart of what Larsen aims to build with Stendr.

"In just a few years, drones have become among the most dangerous weapons on the battlefield, and the defences against them are both expensive and vulnerable. That is the imbalance we are building Stendr to correct. By building it here at home, with some of the sharpest minds in technology and defence in Norway and Europe on the team, the ability to defend ourselves becomes our own – not something we import," he says.

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