Israel's drone ecosystem has produced a growing number of platform developers, sensor manufacturers, and autonomous flight technologies over the past few years. Yet one company, Propeller Drones, has been taking a different approach.
Founded in 2020 by Col. (res.) Itamar Kohali and Tal Yadin, the company does not manufacture drones. Instead, it focuses on helping organizations deploy and operate them, and is positioning itself as the operational link between drone technology developers and customers across defense, infrastructure, and civilian industries.
"The technology already exists," Kohali, the company's CEO, told The Jerusalem Post during a visit to the company's headquarters. "But if you don't know how to use it, it's useless."
The company's origins trace back to 2018, when Yadin, then serving in combat intelligence as a quadcopter operator, met Kohali during a border security project. The two maintained contact and reunited during COVID-19, when commercial drone adoption accelerated worldwide.
Building an operational bridge, not another drone
But rather than competing with Israel's established drone manufacturers, the two concluded that the industry's next challenge would be operational adoption.
"We are not tech people; we are operational," said Yadin, co-founder and the company's chief business officer. "We wanted to be the bridge between technology and the industries."
It was that philosophy that has shaped the company's business model, they told The Post. Today, Propeller Drones employs around 80 people and operates as a dual-use drone services provider, supporting both commercial and defense customers.
Its activities span three primary areas: drone pilot training, aerial data acquisition, and operational support for advanced drone systems.
Training the workforce behind Israel’s drone expansion
The company's academy in central Israel trains over 1,000 drone operators each year, making it, according to the company, one of the country's largest drone training organizations. Customers include the IDF, the Israel Prison Service, Magen David Adom, the Israel Electric Corporation, and more. Several of Israel's largest defense companies, including Elbit Systems, Israel Aerospace Industries, and XTEND, also use the academy for pilot training.
The academy has also partnered with Mercaz Kivun on a program aimed at introducing haredi (ultra-Orthodox) men to careers in the drone industry.
"We see ourselves as a gate for haredim," Kohali said. "Come work as a drone pilot."
Beyond training, the company also conducts aerial mapping, surveying, and infrastructure inspections using drones equipped with specialized sensors. One application involves collecting thermal imagery from solar installations and generating inspection reports for customers' annual regulatory requirements.
And like many other dual-use drone companies, defense has become another major focus. Rather than developing military drone systems itself, Propeller Drones embeds operational teams with technology developers, supporting testing, demonstrations, and other activities throughout a program's development cycle.
"We live the program," Yadin said, describing the company's role in helping developers translate new capabilities into operational use.
Autodrone and the push toward autonomous operations
The company's latest growth area is Autodrone, a service built around autonomous "drone-in-a-box" systems designed for continuous operations. The solution combines commercially available drones with autonomous docking stations, command-and-control systems, and the operational support needed to deploy them around the clock.
The systems are intended for missions such as site security, infrastructure monitoring, and industrial inspections rather than kinetic operations.
Approximately a dozen systems have already been deployed across Israel, and the company plans to expand to around 300 installations by 2029.
Kohali described the platform as an integration effort rather than a proprietary product.
"We cooperate with the companies that make the platforms and handle all the pieces that make it truly function," he said, citing areas such as regulation, operational procedures, and system integration.
The two founders argue that the drone industry's biggest obstacles are no longer technological; rather, regulation, operational safety, and commercial viability are the three main factors that will determine how quickly autonomous drone services can really become mainstream.
Preparing for a low‑altitude aviation revolution
Those issues have made the company an active participant in Israel's National Drone Initiative, which is working to expand routine drone operations, including flights in urban environments.
Kohali believes low-altitude autonomous aviation will eventually reshape sectors ranging from security and infrastructure to logistics.
"It is a revolution to use the low sky to operate," he said.
The company said demand continues to grow across both defense and civilian markets as organizations move from pilot projects toward routine operations.
Since its founding, Propeller Drones said it has doubled in size every year and is preparing to expand internationally. Rather than exporting a new aircraft, however, the company plans to export the operational model it has built in Israel.
"We are not willing to sell something that is not ready for commercial use," Kohali said.
The company's long-term objective is to operate more than 400 drones conducting hundreds of missions each day, while continuing to partner with platform manufacturers.
For Yadin, that strategy reflects the founders' original assessment that widespread drone adoption would depend as much on operational expertise as on advances in hardware.
"We prepare ourselves for the future," he said. "Five years ago, we knew drone technology could play a major role in our lives. Today, we see more and more use cases, and AI will be one of the major driving forces behind the next stage of adoption."
Six years after Kohali and Yadin first discussed the idea of the company, Propeller Drones has grown from a startup founded during a global pandemic into a company working hand-in-hand with Israel's defense industry, critical infrastructure operators, and government agencies.
Propeller Drones is betting that the industry's next phase will depend less on building new aircraft than on operating them at scale. For the company, the opportunity lies not in becoming another drone manufacturer, but in becoming the infrastructure that enables drones to become part of everyday operations.