- Terra Industries expands drone production to provide security for power plants, mines and refineries
- Local manufacturing reduces costs and raises new questions about the sustainability of production
- Annual subscriptions introduce financial risks for customers in unstable economic environments
A Nigerian robotics startup is building thousands of drones each year to protect critical infrastructure across Africa.
It is pursuing a vertically integrated manufacturing strategy that takes inspiration from Apple rather than traditional defense contractors.
Terra Industries, founded in 2024 by two young Nigerians, Maxwell Maduka, 23, and Nathan Nwachuku, 22, opened what it calls Africa's largest drone factory in February 2025.
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Factory scale and early deployments
The company has a 15,000-square-foot facility outside Abuja, Nigeria, capable of producing 30,000 drones a year.
It is already exporting to eight African countries and Canada, protecting assets worth an estimated $11 billion, including power plants, lithium mines, gold mines and oil refineries.
Instead of assembling components from outside suppliers, Terra Industries develops and manufactures its software, airframes, propellers, and lithium-ion battery packs in-house.
However, some sensors and cameras are imported from countries such as South Korea; Keeping core production in-house helps provide much more secure data security.
The AI-powered software, called ArtemisOS, collects surveillance data from multiple systems, analyzes it for threats in real time, and alerts response teams when dangers are detected.
By manufacturing locally, the company claims initial hardware purchases are up to 55% cheaper than international competitors, with savings passed directly to customers.
The company is doing all this with little funding, raising less than $600,000 and hitting $1.9 million in revenue.
In May 2026, Terra won a $1.2 million contract with private security company NetHawk Solutions to deploy AI-powered drones and surveillance towers at two hydropower plants in Nigeria.
Terra has partnered with local cloud platform PipeOps rather than global companies to maintain data sovereignty.
Customers pay for the Terra software through an annual subscription, and without an active subscription, the hardware stops working.
As for user data, it remains in Africa. Terra co-founder and CEO Nathan Nwachukwu said: “We must keep data in African hands.”
This not only saves costs but also helps protect sensitive information from global leaks.
Terra's playbook could be emulating the Ukrainian drone revolution, which demonstrated how relatively low-cost unmanned systems could reshape modern security operations in both military and civilian contexts.
However, it remains to be seen whether Terra's vertically integrated model can sustain production of 30,000 units per year while maintaining consistent quality standards.
There is also uncertainty about the company's ability to deliver reliable software updates in regions with uneven connectivity and infrastructure limitations.
Additionally, their reliance on annual software subscriptions raises concerns about how customers handle budget constraints or delayed payments in these markets.
Via CNN
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