High Lander has officially joined STEP, an American investment fund based in Houston, Texas, focused on companies in the UxS and C-UAS space. Co-exhibiting from a shared pavilion at Airspace World in Lisbon, the entities announced the alliance, which establishes High Lander as the definitive software backbone for STEP’s ecosystem of operations.
STEP’s model goes beyond traditional capital investment. The fund deliberately assembles a portfolio of synergistic, interoperable companies spanning aerial, ground, and maritime domains, acting as an accelerator for the full-spectrum autonomous systems industry. Within this ecosystem, each portfolio company strengthens the others, and High Lander’s software serves as the operational layer for the aerial domain, managing, coordinating, and deconflicting all UAV operations across the ecosystem.
The ecosystem’s focus on the high-growth U.S. aviation market leverages these software solutions to orchestrate macro-level airspace management alongside complex fleet operations.
“To fully unlock the potential across defense and civilian and secure critical infrastructure markets, we required a robust and adaptable central operating system,” said BG (ret.) Benny Mehr, Head of Strategy & Defense at STEP. “High Lander provides the definitive software backbone we needed. Integrating Vega for airspace management and Orion for multi-drone operations gives our ecosystem the operational intelligence required to lead autonomous aviation and homeland security deployments in the United States.”
The Software Backbone for Autonomous Aviation
High Lander provides the airspace and mission management for the STEP ecosystem through its specialized software suite. Vega UTM delivers next-generation uncrewed traffic management, providing aviation authorities and managers with the automated strategic and tactical deconfliction required for unified airspace.
Complementing this, Orion Drone Fleet Management acts as the hardware-agnostic platform for automated flight execution, allowing operators to control and scale complex, multi-drone missions. Together, these platforms form the operational core of the ecosystem, bridging the gap between localized drone operations and airspace safety.
“The future of aviation relies on a fully integrated sky where crewed and uncrewed aircraft operate in harmony,” said Alon Abelson, CEO and co-founder of High Lander. “By embedding our software into the STEP ecosystem and showcasing this architecture together here in Lisbon, we are providing the essential digital infrastructure needed to manage complex airspaces safely and at scale. This collaboration provides a direct path for operators and municipalities to transition from isolated testing to sustained, high-density drone operations.”
Establishing a Definitive Footprint via Tulsa
While the alliance with STEP secures a critical foothold in the Texas aviation market, High Lander is establishing an independent, long-term operational footprint in the United States. The company is utilizing its active deployment in Tulsa as a definitive proof point for US market entry, demonstrating that its presence is a permanent operational reality rather than a symbolic partnership.
The live operations in Tulsa serve to validate real-world scalability under dense flight conditions, proving how automated flight plan approvals and real-time telemetry tracking operate natively within American municipal and industrial landscapes.
Native Counter-UAS Integration and FAA Alignment
High Lander natively embeds Counter-Uncrewed Aircraft Systems (C-UAS) security into its deployments, synthesizing data from disparate radar and sensor arrays into a unified airspace picture. This capability aligns directly with the shifting priorities of the US market, where federal defense and homeland security budgets reflect an aggressive surge in counter-drone spending.
With annual US federal allocations now exceeding one billion dollars for C-UAS procurement and critical infrastructure hardening, High Lander’s architecture is built to absorb this demand. It ensures authorized commercial operations proceed unimpeded while aerial anomalies are mitigated safely, fulfilling a baseline requirement for American municipalities, national security agencies, and industrial facilities.
This architecture also ensures immediate alignment with evolving FAA frameworks. High Lander’s platforms are optimized for current Part 107 standards while structurally anticipating upcoming Part 108 regulations governing Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS) operations. By maintaining continuous communication, telemetry conformance monitoring, and secure data sharing, High Lander satisfies the strict safety-case requirements essential for complex operational waivers under the American federal framework.
