Inside Neros’ Factory Built to Make 1 Million Drones a Year

Sourcery goes inside Neros Technologies’ new 250,000-square-foot Millennium One facility with Co-Founder & CEO Soren Monroe-Anderson. Neros designed the factory with enough space to eventually produce one million drones per year. Today, the company says it is already manufacturing more than 250 drones per day, with engineering, testing, supply chain and production operating under one roof. Soren takes us through Neros’ engineering labs, flight-test operation, drone and ground-station assembly lines, manufacturing software and 100% end-of-line flight testing. We also get a look at the latest Bandit interceptor prototype, which can reach roughly 300 km/h, with Neros targeting closer to 400 km/h for intercepting faster jet-powered Shahed variants. We also visit the new-product introduction line where Neros is preparing Archer AI for mass production, and the massive open portion of the factory reserved for bringing more component manufacturing in-house. Soren explains why mass-producing drones requires designing the product around manufacturing, why 3D printing does not solve the underlying supply-chain problem, and how Neros plans to vertically integrate its way toward million-unit scale. Soren Monroe-Anderson: https://x.com/soren_ma Molly O’Shea: https://x.com/MollySOShea Sourcery: ⁠https://x.com/sourceryy 𝐄𝐏𝐈𝐒𝐎𝐃𝐄 𝐋𝐈𝐍𝐊 YouTube: https://youtu.be/1qysc9sNACg 𝐒𝐏𝐎𝐍𝐒𝐎𝐑𝐒 • Brex https://brex.com/sourcery—The modern finance platform, combining the world’s smartest corporate card with integrated expense management, banking, bill pay, & travel. https://brex.com/sourcery • Turing https://turing.com/sourcery—Turing delivers top-tier talent, data, and tools to help AI labs improve model performance—and enables enterprises to turn those models into powerful, production-ready systems. https://turing.com/sourcery • VCX https://fundrise.com/vcx—VCX is the public ticker for private tech, allowing investors of all sizes to invest in venture capital. View The Portfolio at http://GetVCX.com http://getvcx.com • Deel https://www.deel.com/sourcery—Deel is the global people platform that helps startups hire, manage, pay, and equip anyone, anywhere. Trusted by more than 35,000 fast-growing companies, Deel is the people platform that just works, so teams can scale without the chaos. Visit: https://www.deel.com/sourcery • Public http://public.com/sourcery–Investing platform Public just launched Generated Assets https://public.com/generated-asset, which lets you turn any idea into an investable index with AI. With Generated Assets, you can build, backtest, refine, and invest in any thesis with AI. Gone are the days of one-size-fits-all ETFs. https://public.com/sourcery Follow Sourcery for the latest updates! https://www.sourcery.vc https://www.sourcery.vc/ Disclosure Paid Endorsement. Brokerage services by Open to the Public Investing Inc, member FINRA & SIPC. Advisory services by Public Advisors LLC, SEC-registered adviser. Crypto trading provided by Zero Hash LLC, licensed by the NYSDFS. Generated Assets is an interactive analysis tool by Public Advisors. Output is for informational purposes only and is not an investment recommendation or advice. See disclosures at public.com/disclosures/ga. Matched funds must remain in your account for at least 5 years. Match rate and other terms are subject to change at any time. 𝐓𝐈𝐌𝐄𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐌𝐏𝐒 (00:00) Inside Neros' 250,000 sq. ft. Millennium One Factory (01:21) How Neros pushes its drones to the limit (02:35) Why 3D printing can't solve the drone supply chain problem (03:40) How their drones are built different (06:20) The new 300 km/h Bandit interceptor (09:09) Inside the drone assembly line: producing 250+ drones a day (11:17) South Bay's biggest American flag (11:42) How Neros stress-tests its drones (15:26) Inside the new product introduction line (17:01) What roles is Neros hiring for (19:00) Soren's hot take on defense tech

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  This is our Millennium One facility. This is the factory that we moved into a few months ago. We sized this building to be big enough to do a million drones per year. In our previous facility, we had 100 people and manufacturing in 15,000 square feet. We were just fighting to even get drones out the door. The newest version of the Bandit Interceptor. Still a pretty rough prototype, honestly, but this one goes about 40 kilometers an hour faster. We're doing about 300 kilometers an hour with this drone right here. We wanted with this facility to not have to have multiple sites, not have to move. We've got all the space we need to actually vertically integrate everything and then get to that million per year target.

• 0:39Molly O'Shea?

  Amazing.

• 0:50Molly O'Shea?

  We're here at Nero, so we're going to do a little factory tour with Sorin. Sorin, thanks for having us.

• 0:55Speaker 00

  Absolutely, let's do it.

• 0:57Molly O'Shea?

  What are we going to see today?

• 0:58Speaker 00

  Okay, so this is our Millennium One facility. This is the factory that we moved into a few months ago. We sized this building to be big enough to do a million drones per year. And so we're going to see a lot of stuff from engineering to production and then also empty space that is way to get filled. So a lot of fun stuff. We'll try to check out the engineering labs first.

• 1:20Molly O'Shea?

  What are we going to be looking at over here?

• 1:21Speaker 00

  Okay, so we are coming up on the flight test teams area here. So we have a team of 10 people right now that is constantly out in the desert every single day, testing our products. So you can see there's a bunch of drones on these racks that are at some point in the testing process for engineering development. So we'll see flight tests, our end of line flight tests later on, which is for production. This is all for development purposes. But one of the things you can check out here is one of the interceptor prototypes. So this is the V1 of the Bandit Interceptor that we've been flying out in the desert. We have a newer version of this now that hopefully we'll get to look at too.

• 2:06Speaker 00

  One of the other things here is the Archer AI drone. So all of this stuff has been just getting beat to hell out in the hot desert and surviving. So that's the goal. But really, we're just trying to push everything to its limit and see where it breaks.

• 2:20Molly O'Shea?

  How far in the desert do you go?

• 2:22Speaker 00

  We're like two hours away from here.

• 2:23Molly O'Shea?

  Okay.

• 2:24Speaker 00

  Yeah. And we usually have two teams out every day, so in two different locations.

• 2:29Molly O'Shea?

  Mm-hmm. Cool. Okay.

• 2:35Molly O'Shea?

  So one of your friends thought it would be good for me to ask you why you don't 3D print these in the battlefield.

• 2:41Speaker 00

  Oh, I see. I think I can guess which friend.

• 2:46Speaker 00

  Yeah, so really, we are focused on mass production. 3D printing is generally good for making a few of a thing, making like lots of different things. We are mostly focused on making a lot of one thing or a really consistent process. So like, there's an idea that you can go and 3D print drones in the battlefield. Generally, factories are really efficient when they are large and centralized. And 3D printers can be very useful for adapting drones to various mission sets. But you'd only be 3D printing like the airframe or a payload adapter. What we're trying to solve for is the really like core components and manufacturing process. So that you're not going to be 3D printing your circuit boards, your motors, your radios, any of that stuff out on the battlefield.

• 3:31Speaker 00

  So it does not solve the supply chain problem in the ways that maybe are claimed in some of the posts today.

• 3:39Molly O'Shea?

  We were at Anduril and we went into their R&D building. It's huge.

• 3:45Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 3:46Molly O'Shea?

  And Matt Grimm showed us the castings that they have for their drone bodies, which seem a lot heavier.

• 3:52Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 3:53Molly O'Shea?

  So what's the main difference between using something like that versus what you're using?

• 3:57Speaker 00

  So our airframes right now are mostly made out of carbon plates. So carbon is really light and really strong, but it doesn't have some of the advantages of what they're doing with those metal bodies is that you get to use it as a heat sink. So we actually do this on our drone now where the bottom plate is an aluminum plate and we contact the motherboard and the radios with thermal interface material when we close out the drone with that bottom plate. And so that acts as a big heat sink. But we're still using, it's just a flat plate that's cut into a shape in 2D versus having to be cast or CNC'd, which is just a lot cheaper for mass manufacturing.

• 4:40Molly O'Shea?

  Got it. Okay, what are we doing now?

• 4:42Speaker 00

  Okay, so we're walking past the engineering labs or engineering spaces. So everyone, as you can see, has a lot of stuff at their desks. They have hardware, they have test equipment. It's really just whatever they need to be most effective at their workstation. And then right next to them, they have a bigger lab area. So as an example here, this is our electronics lab. So this is where we're doing bring up on new boards, doing testing of various things. And really, what we want to be able to have for each engineering team is just the ability to iterate extremely quickly and do as much of this in-house as possible.

• 5:21Molly O'Shea?

  It's so cool you have all of this under one roof.

• 5:23Speaker 00

  Yeah, I mean, this is like the advantage of having a facility this size is that the engineers here are sitting right next to production and the teams that are sitting close to production are the ones who are most impactful to production. So we have the mechanical engineering team, the manufacturing engineers, the supply chain team. They are sitting close to the line and also sitting interspersed with each other. So there's really good communication between the full, you know, all the teams for the full lifecycle of the product, not just design, which is where a lot of things tend to get left and just thrown over the fence if you don't have this really close collaboration.

• 6:02Molly O'Shea?

  Following along with you here. So this is a 250,000 square foot facility, if we didn't mention that already. It's pretty big.

• 6:09Speaker 00

  Yep. So this is the mechanical engineering department here. There's a couple of fun things that we can look at.

• 6:16Molly O'Shea?

  They're all running away.

• 6:17Speaker 00

  Yeah, it's okay. So this is actually the newest version of the Bandit Interceptor. You can see it's a lot more sleek than the previous prototype. Still a pretty rough prototype, honestly, but this one goes about 40 kilometers an hour faster. So we're doing about 300 kilometers an hour with this drone right here.

• 6:39Molly O'Shea?

  Oh my god.

• 6:40Speaker 00

  And this is just a couple of months of development so far. So really excited about where this is going.

• 6:46Molly O'Shea?

  How fast do you want them to get?

• 6:49Speaker 00

  So 300 is actually a pretty good spot for taking out like typical shot head drones. To go after jet powered shot head drones, we need to be closer to like 400 kilometers an hour. So that would be kind of the ideal end state.

• 7:03Molly O'Shea?

  How do you make it faster?

• 7:05Speaker 00

  Bigger motors, bigger battery, more aerodynamic. This one got a lot more aerodynamic, but there's still a lot of places that we can improve on that.

• 7:13Molly O'Shea?

  Okay.

• 7:15Molly O'Shea?

  This episode is brought to you by Brex, my favorite. You become what you spend on, and I refuse to spend my time on work that shouldn't exist. Expense reports, receipt chasing, and manual closes. The companies building what's next from Versel, OpenAI, Anthropic, Granola, and Deepgram all made the same call. They all run on Brex. Brex is the intelligent finance platform that combines cards, expenses, and banking into a single stack with agentic finance built in. AI agents that handle expenses automatically, enforce policy before spend happens, and close your books in minutes. That's why Sorcery runs on Brex, so I can spend time on building and not busy work.

• 7:59Molly O'Shea?

  It's time to get Brex AF. Learn more at brex.com/sorcery. That's B-R-E-X dot com slash S-O-U-R-C-E-R-Y. Bye. Turing is training the next generation of AI with tasks that require real expertise and real world judgment. That's why companies like Nvidia, Anthropic, Salesforce, and Gemini partner with Turing. Turing builds realistic reinforcement learning environments and data systems based on real operational traces, the kind of infrastructure Frontier Labs need to train superintelligence. Visit turing.com/sorcery.

• 8:42Speaker 00

  All right, let's keep trucking.

• 8:43Molly O'Shea?

  By the way, we didn't mention this in the beginning, but this is a super fast tour for a reason, so we're just going to keep on going fast between different places. I made sure to wear my sneakers.

• 8:54Speaker 00

  So right now, we are in the in-between engineering to production. So you can see this is all boxes of drones that are getting shipped out.

• 9:06Speaker 00

  And then we have the line here. So on the left side is the drone assembly line. On the right side is the ground station assembly line.

• 9:19Speaker 00

  We, what you'll see is that a lot of the stations are manually operated, but there's a lot of work to be done to make it easier for the operator. So like, as an example, you see, you know, all the parts are preloaded into these bins and then fed in from the back. And so then they're perfectly accessible for the operator. There's a lot of tooling. There's a lot of drivers with preset torques, things like this, that should make it relatively easy to operate each station. We also have manufacturing software deployed across the line that does a few different things. One is we're tracking the serial numbers of all the critical components as they go into airframes. We're also keeping track of the station time. And we're able to see across stations, like, where are we losing time?

• 10:04Speaker 00

  What is the bottleneck? And then that tells our team where to go and focus.

• 10:08Molly O'Shea?

  How are you tracking time?

• 10:10Speaker 00

  So if you see over here, the tablets on the stations, every time they complete a drone, they're just tapping it. And then that resets it. And that data then goes back to our database.

• 10:23Molly O'Shea?

  How hard is it to automate some of these tasks?

• 10:26Speaker 00

  Right now, this would be pretty difficult to automate because this version of the drone was not designed around automation. Really, to get to an automated line, it takes a pretty significant redesign of the product itself. So that's something that we will be going towards with the ground up redesign. But for the rate at which we are iterating, it actually makes a ton of sense to have manually operated stations.

• 10:52Molly O'Shea?

  Is this how fast they actually produce this? Or do they know that we're here?

• 10:56Speaker 00

  No, no, this is, this is normal rate.

• 10:58Molly O'Shea?

  Oh, my God.

• 10:59Speaker 00

  We're, we're doing a little over 250 drones a day right now.

• 11:03Molly O'Shea?

  That's crazy. So when do you outgrow this space?

• 11:08Speaker 00

  We don't know, which is a good thing. If we knew when we were outgrowing, then we'd be sad because we really tried to get a big enough facility to not have to move for a long time.

• 11:17Molly O'Shea?

  You'd have to get a bigger American flag.

• 11:20Speaker 00

  Yeah. This one, I think, is 30 by 60, which is, as far as I know, the largest in the South Bay. That was really important to us. But yeah, next facility needs to have higher ceilings so it can go even bigger.

• 11:33Molly O'Shea?

  Do you have the largest flag in South Bay?

• 11:35Speaker 00

  That is, as far as I know, yeah.

• 11:37Molly O'Shea?

  As far as you know?

• 11:37Speaker 00

  As far as I know. All right, let's keep going.

• 11:42Speaker 00

  You can come on into our testing room.

• 11:45Molly O'Shea?

  Cool.

• 11:48Speaker 00

  So right now, we are flight testing every single drone that we make.

• 11:53Molly O'Shea?

  Yeah.

• 11:53Speaker 00

  So before this station, there is an automated test station. And that screens for a lot of the issues that previously we would catch at flight test. But today, we're still doing 100% flight test. And so what they're doing is putting a payload on the drone and then basically just trying to stress the drone as much as they can in a relatively short flight. Just a, just a math simulation. So you can see they really, really whip the drone back and forth.

• 12:21Molly O'Shea?

  Wow.

• 12:25Molly O'Shea?

  And that's all manual?

• 12:26Speaker 00

  That's all manual.

• 12:27Molly O'Shea?

  When are you going to automate that?

• 12:29Speaker 00

  It's really a process of collecting a ton of data here and collecting a ton of data at the previous test station. And then trying to get to a point where we don't have to flight test all of our drones because we know, you know, typically, like, there'd be such a high rate of catching any issues at the test station that we'd just be sample testing. So we're probably still a little ways away from, from that. But it is what we're trying to get to in the future. And we're collecting all the data to get there now.

• 12:57Molly O'Shea?

  We've been to a couple different drone companies. Most of them are commercial or consumer use, not defense based. But they all have wind tunnels. Why don't you have one?

• 13:09Speaker 00

  You know, we do, so for our types of drones, you know, these quadcopters, they're much less affected by wind than a fixed wing drone. We've never really, we do a ton of testing in very windy conditions, but we've never needed to specifically put something in a wind tunnel and simulate like an exact wind profile. We just do a lot of real world testing and get our information that way.

• 13:34Molly O'Shea?

  Do you see yourself going to fixed wing drones?

• 13:37Speaker 00

  It's possible. It's not something that we are working on today, but it is an area where I think a lot of the same stuff that's been figured out in FPV, like, we can make lower cost systems that are really effective, like, that applies in fixed wing too. And that is what Neuros wants to build, so at some point.

• 13:54Molly O'Shea?

  Okay, all right.

• 13:56Molly O'Shea?

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• 14:41Molly O'Shea?

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• 15:26Molly O'Shea?

  So do you fly them over here too? What's the, is this just more like scale out space?

• 15:31Speaker 00

  So the, I guess the last thing we'll walk through here first is the new product introduction line. So we looked at the main production line. This is where we develop process for new products. So before anything goes to the main line, it has to go through extensive NPI process. And we figure out how to build it. So this is what we're doing right now with the Archer AI product before it goes into to main production later this year. So one of the things that-

• 15:58Molly O'Shea?

  This has never been seen before, is that what you're saying?

• 16:01Speaker 00

  Never been seen before. And it's, it's one of the things that we have been able, enabled to do by having this new space where in our previous facility, we had 100 people and manufacturing in 15,000 square feet. So we were just fighting to even like get drones out the door. Now we are able to do things like having an entire production, like, this is bigger than our old production line, just dedicated to new products.

• 16:24Molly O'Shea?

  Oh, wow.

• 16:25Speaker 00

  So it's a big upgrade. And then, but what you can see beyond this is massive open space.

• 16:35Molly O'Shea?

  Yeah.

• 16:35Speaker 00

  So our plan, and what we're starting to do this year, is do component manufacturing in-house that then feeds into our systems. So we, we wanted with this facility to not have to have multiple sites, not have to move. And so we've got all the space we need to actually vertically integrate everything and then get to that million per year target.

• 17:01Molly O'Shea?

  And so you guys are scaling rapidly. You're hiring new roles. We mentioned this in our longer form interview, but what are you hiring for?

• 17:09Speaker 00

  Yeah, I mean, we're hiring for every engineering discipline. We're hiring for supply chain. We're hiring for, I mean, we're hiring for pretty much every department at the company, but especially hardware engineers and engineers who are really capable of being like full system responsible engineers and really can take on just a ton of accountability.

• 17:31Molly O'Shea?

  So the name Neros is an old wives' tale, isn't it? Where does that come from?

• 17:37Speaker 00

  The name Neros?

• 17:38Molly O'Shea?

  Yeah.

• 17:39Speaker 00

  I don't think it's an old wives' tale. I don't know. I say it's up to the, up to the viewer to figure it out.

• 17:47Molly O'Shea?

  You should all figure it out. Hold a mirror up to the logo, see what you can find. So now we're going to the super secret facility that has blackout curtains all around it.

• 17:58Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, this is surprisingly the most secretive part of the Neros facility.

• 18:04Molly O'Shea?

  By the way, you don't see this, but there's people scootering and skateboarding in the background.

• 18:08Speaker 00

  Well, you gotta be able to get around this place.

• 18:19Molly O'Shea?

  This looks pretty intense. Oh, my God.

• 18:27Speaker 00

  So, yeah, this is one of our employee benefits.

• 18:30Molly O'Shea?

  You guys have your own Equinox.

• 18:33Speaker 00

  Yeah, right? It's a little more powerlifting focused, but it's a-

• 18:38Molly O'Shea?

  A lot of powerlifting.

• 18:38Speaker 00

  It's a nice thing to have.

• 18:40Molly O'Shea?

  This is awesome. Do you guys do group workout classes here?

• 18:43Speaker 00

  We don't do classes. Maybe we should start.

• 18:45Molly O'Shea?

  You should.

• 18:46Speaker 00

  But usually in the morning, there's like three to five people in here, like jamming out to music, lifting. So it's, it's pretty cool.

• 18:53Molly O'Shea?

  Not much cardio.

• 18:55Speaker 00

  Hey, there, there is a bike.

• 18:57Molly O'Shea?

  Oh, my God. Okay, so as we close out, Sorin, I have to ask you, what is your hottest take right now?

• 19:03Speaker 00

  My hottest take right now?

• 19:13Speaker 00

  This is a hard one.

• 19:17Speaker 00

  I think the one that may be upset a lot of people is what we talked about in the long form interview. But I would say, yeah, maybe my hottest take is that

• 19:26Speaker 00

  a lot of the defense tech, maybe the majority of defense tech products that are being put out right now by startups are, are not very effective and maybe even like completely useless.

• 19:40Molly O'Shea?

  They're fake.

• 19:40Speaker 00

  They're fake.

• 19:41Molly O'Shea?

  Damn. Thank you very much.

• 19:44Speaker 00

  You're welcome.

• 19:44Molly O'Shea?

  Cool.

• 19:45Molly O'Shea?

  Hey, it's Molly. If you enjoy our interviews, check out our newsletter, sorcery.vc, where we deliver a once a week top deals and tech headlines email and also go deeper on our podcast interviews. Subscribe to Sorcery today. And don't forget to subscribe to the podcast on YouTube, Spotify, Apple, or wherever you listen. Link in description to sign up.