Ornadyne

We're building robot birds for surveillance.

Y CombinatorSpring 2026ActiveIndustrialsDronesHard TechRoboticsDronesAerospace

What they do

Problem

Traditional drones are increasingly easy to detect visually, acoustically, and electronically, reducing their effectiveness for close-range surveillance.

Solution

Ornadyne builds stealth-optimized flapping-wing drone systems that mimic birds for autonomous reconnaissance and surveillance.

Who it's for

Defense, intelligence, and security organizations needing covert close-range surveillance.

Founders

Geourg Kivijian

Co-founder & CEO

Co-founder & CEO of Ornadyne. Award-winning engineer (IEEE/AIAA) recognized for pioneering work in flapping-wing robotics. Previously led coordination systems for Mars Sample Return at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and lunar rovers at Astrolab. Now scaling Ornadyne to bring bio-inspired stealth and efficiency to the next generation of flight. www.geourgkivijian.com

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Armen Arakelyan

Co-founder & CTO

Co-founder & CTO at Ornadyne, building autonomous flapping-wing aircraft. Previously a Starship components engineer at SpaceX. Before that, I led machining at USC Rocket Propulsion Laboratory at the University of Southern California, helping the team set the amateur rocketry altitude world record at 144 km.