Skydio Establishes R&D Office in Zürich, Welcoming Back Alumni to Their Training Grounds
Skydio Opens Research and Development Office in Zürich
Skydio has established a new research and development office in Zürich, Switzerland, marking its second European R&D location and the first dedicated to flight autonomy. The office will focus on developing autonomous multi-drone systems, GPS-denied navigation, and real-time edge computing. The announcement was made this week, highlighting Zürich’s strong robotics talent pool, particularly from ETH Zürich and the University of Zürich.
The newly formed entity, Skydio Switzerland GmbH, was incorporated in December 2025 at Kanzleistrasse 18, 8004 Zürich, in accordance with Swiss law, which is a requirement for local hiring. This indicates that the office had been operational for several months prior to the public announcement.
Leadership and Technical Focus
The Zürich office will be led by Davide Falanga, Skydio’s Director of Engineering for Autonomy Systems. Falanga completed his PhD at the University of Zürich’s Robotics and Perception Group under Professor Davide Scaramuzza before joining Skydio in March 2022. He has spent over four years at Skydio’s headquarters in San Mateo, California, working on the company’s autonomous flight stack. Falanga expressed enthusiasm about building a team in Zürich to advance drone capabilities in real-world applications.
Key Areas of Development
Engineers in the Zürich office will concentrate on:
- Multi-vehicle coordination
- GPS-denied navigation
- Real-time decision-making at the edge
These areas represent significant challenges in achieving fully autonomous drone operations and are essential for enabling one-pilot, multiple-drone operations, which have recently received approval from the FAA for several public safety agencies.
Academic Collaboration and Local Expertise
The work being done in Zürich aligns closely with the research conducted by Falanga and his colleagues at the University of Zürich, focusing on agile, vision-based quadrotor flight. Scaramuzza welcomed Skydio’s establishment in Zürich, noting that it fosters collaboration between real-world autonomy challenges and academic research. Roland Siegwart, a Professor of Robotics at ETH Zürich, also expressed support for Skydio’s presence, emphasizing Zürich’s status as a leading robotics hub.
Strategic Expansion and Future Prospects
Skydio’s strategy for international expansion involves situating offices near top-tier research institutions rather than in lower-cost labor markets. The company’s headquarters in the Bay Area is close to Stanford and UC Berkeley, while its Boston office is near MIT. The Tampere, Finland office, which opened in June 2025, focuses on camera hardware and imaging technology, targeting Finland’s specialized sensor expertise. The Zürich office will serve a distinct purpose in advancing autonomy and flight control.
The timing of the Zürich office’s opening coincides with Skydio’s recent $52 million order from the U.S. Army for nearly 3,000 X10D drones, which represents the largest single-vendor small UAS procurement in Army history. The X10D’s competitive edge lies in its GPS-denied navigation capabilities, which are directly related to the research being conducted in Zürich.
Conclusion
Davide Falanga’s leadership in Zürich is significant, as he is one of four PhD graduates recruited from Scaramuzza’s lab in 2022. This move reflects Skydio’s commitment to integrating academic research with commercial applications, a rare approach in the industry. The legal incorporation of Skydio Switzerland GmbH in December 2025 suggests that the company was already in the process of staffing the office before making the announcement.
With ongoing developments in multi-vehicle coordination, Skydio aims to enhance its defense products by the end of 2027. The alignment of FAA regulations and the Army’s expanding X10D fleet creates a strong demand for the capabilities being developed in Zürich, positioning Skydio to meet the needs of military buyers seeking advanced drone technology.