Volatus Aerospace expands as drone demand explodes
Things are moving fast in Canada’s drone industry. Earlier this year Volatus Aerospace took possession of a 53,000 square foot manufacturing and systems integration facility in Mirabel Quebec. This week the remotely piloted aerospace solutions provider held its official opening ceremony amidst a slew of recently arrived employees, politicians, and supply chain partners.
“It’s a significant expansion of our production capacity,” said Glen Lynch, Volatus’s chief executive officer. “Having the ability to develop, produce, integrate and test these important technologies here in Canada is a crucial sovereign capability.”
Lynch credits widespread increased demand for the quick action. Just five days after Volatus was selected to participate in Canada’s Drone Defence Initiative, the company qualified across all five marketplace streams. “I have never seen any government move at this speed,” said Lynch regarding the tactical uncrewed systems ISR package framework that it was chosen to produce in early September, a deal that could be worth $25 million. “The DDI was announced in July. “Contracts were issued just a few weeks later.”
The Mirabel site is currently being used to produce drone docking stations, system integrations, the company’s V-Series aircraft and a range of other advanced autonomous systems. “Volatus now has capacity to scale domestic manufacturing, advance proprietary technologies and support larger Canadian aerospace and defence programs,” said Lynch “When combined with our V-Cortex AI flight controller and autonomy operating system this enables us to increasingly build capabilities across the full value chain.”
Cross-Canada supply chain integration
Lynch cites uncrewed and autonomous systems and countermeasures; communications and data systems; engineering and integration services; testing and training; and innovation and experimentation as key potential Volatus Aerospace growth areas.
Staff are structuring its defence output, to align capabilities in Mirabel, with those of other company facilities in the rest of the country. The move was in part inspired by the “Build Partner Buy” defence framework that was outlined in Canada’s Defence Industrial Strategy which optimizes production, assembly and the capabilities of key supply chain partners.
These include Volatus Aerospace’s recently stood up Toronto defence unit which is co-located within its commercial remote-operations control center in Vaughan Ontario. The facility is in the process of acquiring a range of federal security approvals.
During recent weeks Volatus Aerospace has been transferring staff including chief technology officer Krish Srinivasan to Mirabel as the location scales up. The idea is to increase group cohesion and synergies. “Attack and defence vectors are changing constantly,” says Lynch who notes that staff closely monitor drone-versus-drone and electronic-warfare adaptation cycles.
The Ukraine, where both sides constantly iterate by improving resistance to electronic warfare, different navigation systems, cameras, and jet propulsion systems that raised speed substantially has been a fertile source of cases studies. “We need to react fast as strategies shift,” says Lynch. “Having Krish nearby will thus be a huge plus.”
Training beefs up
Danielle Gagné, Volatus Aerospace’s head of global training strategy and business development, who recently moved to Montreal from Portland Maine is another crucial addition to the Mirabel unit. The site is expected to become a major training and educational content creation hub. “A drone is a tool,” says Gagné with a smile. “But without training it’s just a paper weight.”
She’s not kidding. Education represents big bucks in the UAV field. Late last year Volatus Aerospace landed a contract (potentially valued at $9 million) to supply “an allied defence organization” with a next-generation Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR) operations interim training system.
Deliverables include integrated control interfaces that support foundational flight and sensor-operation training, and an onsite instructor to facilitate integration into the customer’s training environment. Montreal’s bilingual workforce makes the locale an ideal hub for the company’s bilingual drone related technical and operational documentation, much of which is expected to be produced there.
Building on Canada’s history
The fact that Volatus Aerospace did not release the name of its NATO ISR client is hardly surprising. Confidentiality and secrecy are an increasing fact of life amidst a deteriorating global order. This, amidst Russian threats to target drone production facilities in some European countries. These include the U.K., which Russian President Vladimir Putin regards as funding the war in the Ukraine and supplying it with long-range weapons during increasingly tough drone attacks against Russian infrastructure.
European governments thus have a major incentive to keep their drone work secret, and to outsource as much as possible to facilities that are out of easy range of Russian air strikes. Those pressures are likely to increase if the Ukraine continues recent sustained hits such as those on major diesel oil refineries and a near 2,000 drone strike on infrastructures during Russian state duma elections. Over time, Canadian production, integration and training facilities, such as Volatus Aerospace, could play a similar role in helping its European NATO partners as they did during World War II when they equipped and trained allied pilots.
Investors foresee significant growth
Investors, who foresee significant growth ahead, agree. In June Volatus, which trades on the TSX exchange under the symbol FLT closed a public offering which raised $35 million to beef up its balance sheet, fund the Mirabel site, increase RPAS development and finance possible future acquisitions. The Business Development Bank of Canada which raised $6 billion for its defence platform and whose president, Isabelle Hudon, was present at Volatus Aerospace’s Mirabel opening ceremonies has been another big backer.
That enthusiasm is hardly surprising. Volatus Aerospace represents the perfect prototype “dual use” defence provider that the Canadian government and the BDC want to promote. The idea is to foster plants and labs industries such as drones, aerospace, quantum, biomedical and digital systems that serve both the Canadian Armed Forces and civilian markets, so factories stay busy between wars and IP stays Canadian.
For example, Volatus Aerospace continues to simultaneously tackle the energy, utilities and infrastructure inspection markets. The launch of Volatus Aerospace’s SKYDRA™ C-UAS SaaS platform is expected to boost its higher-value, recurring software revenue. The company generated $8.4 million in sales during the second quarter of 2026 while deliveries shot up by 38% and services by 59%.
“Having the ability to develop, produce, integrate and test these important technologies here in Canada is a crucial sovereign capability.”
Glen Lynch, chief executive officer, Volatus Aerospace
