Anti-drone and sensor protection company DroneShield (ASX:DRO) is chipping away at the European market as part of its global sales strategy.

The company announced two more deals this morning in separate European countries, from which it expects to generate revenue of around $750,000.

DroneShield shares ticked higher to 16c at the opening bell, after completing a $7.5m share placement on August 13 priced at 12.5c per share.

 

One step at a time

While not naming names, DroneShield described the two European customers as “government agencies with a high credit rating”.

The company is also optimistic the new orders will lead to additional deployments with those customers.

Speaking with Stockhead recently about the company’s strategy and the broader state of the drone market, DroneShield CEO Oleg Vornik said small contracts were a key component of growing out the revenue base.

“The reason they’re important is because a lot of the hard work is on the first contract,” he said.

“Because once you’ve done deployment and the customer is happy … first of all you look at who the customer is — if they’re a major customer it’s effectively a trial. And once they validate the system over the next few months, they’ll say ‘I’ll continue to buy these things’.”

The first of the two orders is for the company’s DroneSentinel multi-sensor detection system, along with a DroneGun — the portable device that can neutralise an airborne drone threat.

These two new orders follow an initial deal DroneShield signed with that customer in late-July.

Having booked follow-on orders with the same customers, Vornek said “further multi-million dollar opportunities are expected in the next 12-24 months”.

The other order, which was made by the purchasing government’s Ministry of Defence, was for a number of the company’s portable devices including the DroneGun and DroneNode — a device which can be transported via briefcase and once activated, acts to jam the RF frequency bands drones need to fly.

Vornik said the two deals showed the flexibility in DroneShield’s product suite, in terms of both portable devices and sensor systems that were operated from a central hub.

The company expects to book most of its revenue for the two contracts in the September quarter, with around half of the second order expected to be shipped in the December quarter.