AirForestry says its drone felled trees in a working production forest and, separately, completed an end-to-end harvest without human control — each a first for the airborne thinning method it has built since 2020. Founded in 2020 by Olle Gelin, Mauritz Andersson, Markus Romar and Caroline Walerud, the company has drawn backing from several of Europe’s largest forest owners. Walerud, who became chief executive in December 2025, has moved AirForestry into a scale-up phase after a €10.3 million seed round led by Northzone late in 2024.

She has set the company an unusually large target, arguing that drone thinning can take a substantial share out of forestry’s carbon emissions against what she describes as almost unlimited customer demand. “I believe that AirForestry could become one of the world’s most important companies,” Walerud said.

Conventional thinning relies on machines weighing 20 tonnes or more, driven deep into the stand to fell trees that themselves weigh as little as 80 kilograms. AirForestry estimates that more than 20 per cent of the forest floor is damaged simply to move that machinery into position, with forest owners worldwide spending around €14 billion a year on the operation.

Built to avoid all of it, the company’s drone flies above the canopy on an electric powertrain that leaves no wheel tracks, no soil compaction and no root damage. Its 6.2-metre carbon-fibre airframe carries a purpose-built harvesting tool that grips a tree from the top, delimbs it on the way down, cuts it close to the ground and carries the trunk out to the nearest road. The machine is built to operate in Northern European conditions.