Loitering munition: interview with Donaustahl founder Stefan Thumann

Within just twelve months, Donaustahl has established itself as a highly specialised developer of effectors for combat unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) and first-person view (FPV) combat electronics. As a sought-after expert, Thumann already spoke at an event of the UXS Alliance in Berlin in November. Groups such as Hensoldt also have the young company on their radar, as recently became known on the short-message service X (formerly Twitter). And this week the news magazine Spiegel reported exclusively that Donaustahl – as the first company worldwide – is bringing combat-optimised “Combat Stacks” (core avionics for UAV) for FPV to the market.

Game on.@Hensoldt SPEXER 2000 vs. @DonaustahlGmbH ALMP „MAUS“
A battle were both sides might come out victorious!
Because a huge gain of information for both companies will be the result in any case. pic.twitter.com/HiUqDt3Qat— Donaustahl GmbH (@DonaustahlGmbH) November 9, 2024

Mr Thumann, everyone is talking about your company at the moment. When did you found Donaustahl and how has the company developed since then?
Donaustahl started operating in 2020 and was originally a manufacturer of handgun shoulder stocks. From the beginning of 2023, however, we increasingly put out feelers and expanded our product portfolio. Initially, in addition to our shoulder stocks, we also produced protected ampoule carriers for combat medics and field kits for the Starlink satellite cables for the Ukrainian armed forces. Here we made good contacts and earned the trust of the Ukrainians. Soon, owing to steadily rising demand, we were manufacturing structural parts for fixed-wing UAV. But it was only the acute need for FPV quadcopters that prompted me to develop our own system. We obtain the expertise directly from the field through close cooperation between Donaustahl employees on site and the Ukrainian armed forces. We are not afraid to go right up to the front. So you could say Donaustahl has developed well.

What does the product range look like now?
We can cover the entire spectrum of FPV close-range warfare. With the Adaptive Loitering Munition Plattform Maus we have developed a universal combat munition classified as a weapon of war, which can be adapted modularly to all customer requirements. Added to this is the ability to integrate a wide range of effectors. In addition, we have developed our own warheads and grenades specifically for UAV use.

What does the foreseeable future hold for Donaustahl?
New is our “combat electronics” business unit. Here we develop hardware specifically for use in combat drones. The future will bring a number of further drone projects. We want to tackle both the Russian glide bombs and the civilian sector.

FPV is a topic of drastic contrasts. If you order a battalion of tanks, it takes five years until delivery – in the best case. The FPV drones that are supposed to destroy these tanks may be in the inventory within a few days. However: the same people who consider it normal to fire a guided missile costing tens or hundreds of thousands of euros one way worry that the drone costing a few hundred euros does not come back. Are drones and FPV still being thought about wrongly here?
I am torn on that. On the one hand, I see, for example in the Bundeswehr (German Armed Forces), many very capable people who take the topic very seriously and have recognised the capability gap. On the other hand, there are just as many who cannot even spell the word drone properly. The civilian population largely does not care about the topic. When they think of drones, they still think of the US Predator or some science fiction stuff. They will only wake up when Russian, Iranian or above all Chinese UAV are flying around our ears.

The defence industry is among the winners of the Zeitenwende. The order books are full, share prices are rising. It is an open secret that Donaustahl is also working on a kind of participation model. From when can interested parties contact you?
The big problem here is the cost and time factor. Converting into a public limited company (AG), having it valued and taking it to the stock exchange would cost hundreds of thousands of euros and take up to a year. Money and time that we, as a defence company cut off from the capital market, do not have and that I would rather put into developing my products and recruiting staff. So a stock exchange listing is ruled out in the medium term. There are alternatives to an IPO. However, these also have considerable disadvantages. We are still looking for a solution. But put simply: it costs too much money to raise money this way.