Tekever and Icomat have expanded their partnership to support production and industrialisation of the AR5 unmanned aerial system in the UK, a deal that gives UK composites manufacturers a concrete example of defence primes embedding local supply chains into scale-up programmes rather than importing components.

The partnership sits within OVERMATCH, Tekever's £400m industrial expansion programme to scale manufacturing capacity and strengthen the UK's sovereign defence industrial base; both companies are backed by the NATO Innovation Fund, with the collaboration intended to strengthen NATO's industrial capability and technological sovereignty.

The expanded partnership draws on Icomat's manufacturing operations in Gloucester and Swindon, combining Tekever's autonomous systems with Icomat's Rapid Tow Shearing composite manufacturing technology.

Tekever, headquartered in Portugal, describes itself as Europe's leading provider of AI-enabled autonomous systems, and recently unveiled the AR6, a new family of autonomous systems for heavy lift.

Icomat, a University of Bristol spin-out founded in 2019, is an advanced composites manufacturer and inventor of Rapid Tow Shearing; the company raised $22.5m in Series A funding led by 8VC and the NATO Innovation Fund.

Scott McClelland, deputy director at the Tekever Defence Unit, said delivering autonomous capability at scale requires a resilient industrial ecosystem, and that partnerships with companies such as Icomat help strengthen the UK supply chain. Evangelos Zympeloudis, CEO of Icomat, said the companies share a common vision for strengthening defence capability through innovation, scalability and sovereign manufacturing.

The partnership reflects a wider shift towards embedding domestic advanced manufacturers directly into defence primes' scale-up programmes, rather than importing composite components, as autonomous systems production accelerates across NATO.

The timing tracks the UK's own push into sovereign autonomous capability, with more than £5bn committed to drones and autonomous systems under the UK's 2026 Defence Investment Plan, including a new Uncrewed Systems Centre opened in Swindon, home to one of Icomat's manufacturing sites.

For the sector, the deal positions specialist UK composite manufacturers as direct beneficiaries of defence primes' sovereignty push, giving smaller advanced materials firms access to large-scale production programmes.

The wider signal for the sector is that NATO Innovation Fund-backed manufacturers are becoming preferred partners for scaling autonomous systems production, as state-linked investment increasingly determines which specialist suppliers get embedded into major defence programmes.

Source: JEC Composites / CompositesWorld / Army Recognition