- Terra Industries scales drone production to provide security for power plants, mines and refineries
- Local production reduces costs and at the same time raises new questions about production sustainability
- Annual subscriptions introduce financial risk to customers in volatile economic environments
A Nigerian robotics startup builds thousands of drones each year to protect critical infrastructure across Africa.
It employs a vertically integrated manufacturing strategy that draws inspiration from Apple rather than traditional defense contractors.
Terra Industries, founded in 2024 by two young Nigerians – 23-year-old Maxwell Maduka and 22-year-old Nathan Nwachuku – launched what it calls the largest drone factory in Africa in February 2025.
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Factory scale and early implementations
The company has a 15,000 square meter facility on the outskirts of Abuja, Nigeria, capable of producing 30,000 drones annually.
It already exports to eight African countries and Canada and protects assets worth an estimated $11 billion, including power plants, lithium mines, gold mines and oil refineries.
Rather than assembling components from third-party 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 nations including 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 achieves all of these with little funding, raising less than $600,000 while reaching $1.9 million in revenue.
In May 2026, Terra won a $1.2 million contract with private security firm NetHawk Solutions to install AI-powered drones and surveillance towers at two hydroelectric plants in Nigeria.
Terra has partnered with local cloud platform PipeOps over global firms to maintain data sovereignty.
Customers pay for the Terra software on an annual subscription basis, and without an active subscription the hardware stops working.
For user data, it remains in Africa. Co-founder and CEO of Terra, Nathan Nwachukwu, said: “We need to keep the data in African hands.”
This not only saves costs, but also helps protect sensitive information from global leaks.
Terra’s playbook could mimic the Ukrainian drone revolution, which showed how relatively inexpensive unmanned systems could reshape modern security operations across both military and civilian contexts.
However, whether Terra’s vertically integrated model can sustain production of 30,000 units annually while maintaining consistent quality standards remains to be seen.
There is also uncertainty about the company’s ability to deliver reliable software updates across regions with patchy connectivity and infrastructure limitations.
Also, its reliance on annual software subscriptions raises concerns about how customers deal with budget constraints or late payments in these markets.
Via CNN
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