Manna Aero shifts to US with Oklahoma manufacturing hub

Manna Aero, the Ireland-based autonomous drone delivery startup, said Wednesday it is setting up a U.S. operations and manufacturing center in Tulsa, Oklahoma, fueled by the $50 million in venture capital it raised in April. The center is expected to employ about 1,000 people over the next several years. Construction on the factory is underway, and founder and CEO Bobby Healy said he expects manufacturing to begin there in about a year.

As construction continues, Manna plans to focus on scaling its operations team to about 200 to 300 people over the next 12 months, Healy said. The pace of hiring will depend on growth outside Tulsa: the company is assessing six other U.S. cities and, if all goes well, plans to start entering them by the end of 2027. Healy tied the push to the scale of the American market and its delivery infrastructure: “It’s just the size of the market here, consumer behavior, and the fact that the aggregators (DoorDash, Uber Eats) have consolidated the market so well, and they’re so well run,” he said, explaining why Manna is prioritizing the U.S.

The expansion comes as Manna pulled back its drone delivery operations last month citing a lack of planning regulations that would allow it to scale there; Ireland remains home to the company’s R&D, administrative, and manufacturing operations, but not delivery flights. To lead the U.S. push, Manna hired former Ryanair CMO Kenny Jacobs as its executive chair and president. Healy credited the Trump administration and the FAA — the Federal Aviation Administration, the US aviation regulator — with giving the drone industry a boost, saying the effect is showing up in investment; he added that Manna had held off on U.S. growth plans until the regulatory environment was ready, and has now decided to commit its resources to the country.

Manna isn’t new to the U.S.: it began operating in 2023 in the AllianceTexas Mobility Innovation Zone, a planned community near Dallas, Texas developed by Hillwood, and has since expanded across the greater Dallas-Fort Worth area. The company’s drones lower packages via a tether rather than landing, the same approach used by competitors Wing and Zipline, and Manna runs a delivery-as-a-service model billed per flight, working with DoorDash and Uber Eats in the U.S. and Deliveroo in Europe. The goal, according to Healy, is to turn Manna into a major U.S. drone delivery operator rivaling Zipline, Amazon, and Wing.

Why it matters

Manna Aero is shifting its capital and operations from Ireland to the United States due to favorable regulatory policies and a highly consolidated consumer market, aiming to establish itself as a major competitor to Zipline, Amazon, and Wing.