TL;DRManna is building a US operations and manufacturing centre in Tulsa, Oklahoma, employing 1,000 people. It left Ireland and is targeting six US cities by end of 2027.
Manna Aero, the Ireland-based autonomous drone delivery startup, is setting up a US operations and manufacturing centre in Tulsa, Oklahoma, that will employ about 1,000 people over the next several years. Construction is underway, with manufacturing expected to begin in about a year. The expansion is fuelled by the $50 million in venture capital Manna raised in April.
The company will scale its operations team to 200 to 300 people in the next 12 months, with factory hiring dependent on the pace of expansion beyond Tulsa. Manna is assessing six other US cities and plans to enter them by end of 2027 if all goes well. CEO Bobby Healy told TechCrunch the goal is to become a major US drone delivery operator competing with Zipline, Amazon, and Google’s Wing.
“The United States has the market that everybody wants,” Healy said, citing the size of the market, consumer behaviour, and the consolidation by aggregators like DoorDash and Uber Eats. Manna operates autonomous, remotely monitored drones that lower packages on a tether rather than landing. It has a hybrid business model: delivery-as-a-service charging per flight, with partnerships across DoorDash, Deliveroo, and Uber Eats in Europe alongside its own consumer app. Drone delivery has evolved from a novelty into a competitive market, with Amazon, Walmart, and Zipline all scaling US operations.
