Visionary Machines, a computer vision business, has raised $3.5 million that was fully subscribed by its current backers, including Folklore Ventures, OIF, Thorney, Salus, and Significant VC.

CEO Sonny Foster stated, “This demonstrates our investors’ faith in the work that Visionary Machines is producing.”

“Improving our augmented vision systems’ capabilities, especially our passive optical drone detection, tracking, identification, and targeting system, Pandion Sentinel.”

According to the company, new funding will support an ongoing employment campaign at the Sydney-based business, which has unfilled positions in its product and engineering teams.

As swarming threats increase, defense and critical infrastructure operators may now identify, track, and target drones without releasing telltale signals thanks to Visionary Machines’ passive 3D optical arrays.

Drones and other autonomous robotics systems are to be tracked and countered by its Pandion Sentinal device.

Although the conflict in Ukraine has demonstrated how common drones are in contemporary combat, deep-tech companies already dominate the local counter drone business.

Earlier this year, ASX-listed DroneShield introduced an enhanced, multi-sensor DroneSentry suite that combines long-range optical, radar, and RF sensing.

At the same time, Silentium Defence in Adelaide is proposing backpack-sized passive, emission-free radar sensors.

Investors have returned to the Visionary Machines table, though, since the most recent round is fully subscribed by those who contributed to the startup’s $7.5 million seed round in 2021.