August the 3rd, 2025 – The Osijek company Orqa has made an enormous name for itself in the drone world, and has since become a very strong asset for the Croatian military.
As Poslovni Dnevnik/Marija Brnic/Davor Ivankovic/VL writes, about a month ago, word began to spread in certain circles that an Osijek-based IT company was producing military reconnaissance and kamikaze drones.
At that time, Croatian Defense Minister Ivan Anušić told his colleagues in Brussels that Croatia intended to seek the status of the first manufacturer of mini-combat drones in the EU. He added that the country would also seek to offer NATO members those combat drones, which it can produce in quantities of half a million per year.
At the recent spectacular military parade held in Zagreb, about 100 of these impressive drones were shown to the public for the first time in large numbers. The drone, made by the Osijek company Orqa, is officially named the FPV MRM-2 Interceptor and is already in use by the Croatian military. The Croatian Army has actually just ordered the delivery of drones configured according to their wishes in the amount of 10 million euros.
At the last Croatian Government session, Prime Minister Andrej Plenković announced Croatia’s intention to apply for a loan from the EU’s SAFE mechanism. He added that it would total as much as 1.86 billion euros. These are unusually favourable loans that serve for the accelerated modernisation of EU armies, and the principal is typically to be repaid in a decade.
On that occasion, Defense Minister Anušić listed all the procurements that the Ministry of Defense would implement through the SAFE mechanism. That includes the procurement of German Leopard 2A8 tanks and French Caesar self-propelled howitzers. It also includes the purchase of drones from the Osijek company Orqa worth 100 million euros for the needs of not the Croatian military, but the Ukrainian armed forces. As such, Croatia took the first necessary, initial step and applied for access to this 150 billion euro SAFE fund, and the next steps will follow this autumn.
The secret to the success of the FPV drones made by the Osijek company Orqa is that they’re the first to manage to produce these highly sought-after drones consisting of several hundred components. All of those components have been manufactured within Orqa itself, or in the facilities of its partners across the EU. The drone was thus cleaned of any hardware or software Chinese components, becoming “China free” when Orqa finally adopted the production of cameras and motors in its own facilities.
Until recently, Orqa was known in gaming circles as a manufacturer of the most sophisticated FPV googles, goggles for control in the so-called remote reality. However, a few years ago, in cooperation with its Estonian partner, Orqa, it made glasses, i.e. visors that also serve military purposes. They’re intended for crews of tanks and combat armoured vehicles. Using these glasses, individuals can virtually “come out of their armour” and move as if they were outside of their vehicle. After Russia attacked Ukraine, Orqa was asked for help. Soon after, cooperation was created and Orqa began producing components for Ukrainian drones.
Nobody at Orqa has made any attempt to hide their intentions to become the number one manufacturer of drones in the world. Their business policy, however, is not to comment on their clients or their requests. That said, information does get leaked, and Minister Anušić himself recently said that Orqa’s drones are already being used by the armies of countries such as France, the USA, India and Saudi Arabia.
In one of his rare public appearances, one of Orqa’s three co-founders, Ivan Jelušić, the company’s director of sales and business development, announced something very exciting. That news regarded a large sum of Orqa drones being prepared with their Estonian partner, the company Lendurai, in a deal worth almost 400 million euros. Jelušić revealed that their goal is to launch a joint assembly and integration plant in Estonia.
“This cooperation is an excellent example of combining the capabilities of two companies into high-value-added products, where the entire electronics and sensors are manufactured entirely from Croatian components, while the drone’s brain is powered by a software solution from an Estonian company,” explained Jelušić, announcing that the next generation of FPV drones will also be entirely autonomous.
By combining Orqa’s EU-developed hardware with Lendurai’s autonomy package, two European countries are providing a solution resilient to supply chain difficulties (also known as independence from China). He also added that their innovative solutions train an operator for a mission in just two days, as opposed to a month-long training cycle. The latter is otherwise the typical training time for front-line FPV teams (as is the case in combat conditions in Ukraine).
At the end of last year, Orqa had signed an important contract with a Turkish manufacturer of unmanned systems – Bayraktar, but then that contract went under the radar. As far as can be heard, Orqa is currently participating in the modernisation of the unmanned systems of the Turkish manufacturer, which will also integrate their 100% Croatian-made drones.
