Africa’s most-funded defence technology company, Terra Industries, is constructing a 34,000-square-foot drone manufacturing facility in Accra that it says will be the largest on the continent when it opens in June 2026, marking the Nigerian firm’s first production expansion beyond its home country.
The facility, named Pax-2, more than doubles the footprint of Terra’s flagship 15,000-square-foot factory in Abuja and targets an annual output of 50,000 units by 2028. Construction is in its final phase.
The factory will create 120 engineering jobs in Ghana and run on a continuous production schedule. It will produce three of Terra’s aerial systems: the Archer VTOL, a long-range surveillance and strike platform; the Iroko UAV, built for rapid tactical deployment; and Kama, a high-speed counter-drone interceptor capable of reaching 300 kilometres per hour.
Speaking on the expansion, Terra co-founder and chief executive officer Nathan Nwachuku said the company chose Ghana deliberately. “We chose Ghana for Pax-2 because of its talent, strategic position, and political will to become a serious defence exporter,” he said. He added that lasting peace on the continent required Africa to build sovereign defence rather than rely on foreign security architecture.
Founded in 2024 by Nwachuku and Maxwell Maduka, Terra has raised $34 million across two rounds in 2026, making it the most-funded defence-tech startup on the continent. An $11.75 million round led by 8VC in January was followed by a $22 million follow-on led by Lux Capital, with participation from Flutterwave chief executive Olugbenga Agboola’s Resilience17 Capital.
The company sells defence hardware including drones bundled with its proprietary ArtemisOS software on a recurring-fee basis, modelled on United States defence firms Anduril and Palantir. It says it already protects roughly $11 billion in assets across eight African countries, including hydropower plants, lithium mines, and oil facilities.
The Ghana expansion follows a February memorandum of understanding between Terra and the Defence Industries Corporation of Nigeria (DICON), the state-run defence arm of the Nigerian Armed Forces, to establish a joint venture for local assembly and training. The agreement was executed under the DICON Act 2023, which opened the corporation to public-private partnerships for the first time.
The factory arrives against a backdrop of intensifying drone warfare across the Sahel. Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin, the al-Qaeda coalition active in Mali and Burkina Faso, conducted at least 89 drone operations between 2023 and 2025, and Islamic State Sahel Province struck Niamey International Airport with suicide drones in January 2026. Eleven African countries have now recorded drone attacks by non-state actors, most using cheap quadcopters retrofitted with improvised explosive devices, while counter-drone capabilities across the region have lagged significantly behind.
Whether Terra can convert its funding lead into durable government contracts, particularly with the Confederation of Sahel States, which has cut ties with ECOWAS and is actively procuring drone systems, will test the company’s argument that African defence buyers will choose a homegrown manufacturer over established foreign suppliers.
