Cork-Shannon parcel drone deliveries and shopping drops to islands all on Iona's radar
Iona founder Etienne Louvet with one of the company's drones.
Parcel deliveries between Cork and Shannon in 45 minutes. Shopping drops to islands off the South-West. Priority pharma and emergency medical packages by air.
The prospect is on the horizon as drone technology firm Iona aims to radically change Ireland’s package delivery infrastructure, planning to begin its first Irish commercial operations later this year.
Iona is a drone and logistics company founded by French entrepreneur Etienne Louvet. His idea for drone delivery came seeing his grandmother struggle to get medicines in rural Brittany during Covid and he founded Iona a year later. Originally based in London, Shannon is now its operations hub as it aims to launch commercially in the UK and Ireland this year.
The company has received investment to date of almost €4.5m and is designated as a high potential start-up by Enterprise Ireland. Mr Louvet has spoken with major delivery carriers including DPD and An Post.
“We have five drones at the moment and we're negotiating with a number of customers. We hope to sign them and start something by the end of the year,” he said.
"We had a team of five in Ireland but I have just hired four more and we're going to grow in 2026. Depending on the operations, it could be up to 15, depending on how fast we can get to like the commercial operations that we have in the pipeline in the Galway and Shannon area.”
Mr Louvet believes Irish logistics is set for major change as the current system is “broken”. “This is something that was particularly striking in Ireland when Fastway collapsed.
“The entire system is currently working on the assumptions that we can stretch the traditional way of delivering which was created 100 years ago. Except that people don't get the same stuff now.
The first demonstration food delivery flights by Manna took off from Cork's Marina Market last month, and flights continue to take place as the company engages with Cork City Council regarding a full roll-out across the city, though the Irish Aviation Authority confirmed there has been "a number of complaints" from residents about the flights.
Mr Louvet has watched the rise of Manna in Ireland with interest but says the companies work in different sectors. “We're not competitors. We're not doing the same thing. We're B2B. We're not delivering coffees. The technology is completely different than what you would use as a multicopter like Manna. At the moment, when everyone in Europe is talking about drone technology, that's partially thanks to Bobby Healy and and the work that Manna is doing."
Indeed, Manna founder Bobby Healy was a reason for relocating Iona’s main operations to Ireland. Brexit considerations made an EU hub necessary, while Mr Louvet encountered Mr Healy while discussing other start-up issues in the UK. “I was ranting about my dissatisfaction with the Civilian Aviation Authority in the UK for quite some time. One person that I was in contact with was Bobb and he said: ‘Hey, you should come to Ireland.’ Then over the course of a month I met with Bobby and with other people and Ireland joined the dots for Iona.
“We looked at Spain, we looked at France, we looked at Germany, we looked at like a number of countries. But Ireland is a small market with a very compelling use case for what we do. We can produce locally so the drones are produced in Galway at with EirComposites and we're going to continue to produce locally. We're going to work with the Irish Aviation Authority. We're going to be at the forefront of drone technologies because the Government has a drone initiative that is supporting the talent.”
Iona has been working on developing at full scale and on the software to run the technology. “The hardware, the drone, is what people see but that is the tip of the iceberg and only like probably 20% of what we work on. The complexity of what we do is not to fly from point A to point B but it's to fly from point A to point B which means you need to demonstrate to the aviation authority that your entire system is auditable and that my drone only takes off if it is compliant with regulations and is safe and reliable. So there is a lot of software, a lot of embedded system, a lot of hardware and robotics at work.”
In 2025, Iona demonstrated the technology with its first test customer, a 10km flight in Cambridge. Unlike Manna's multicopters which drop but don’t land, the Iona drones have cargo compartments. The Iona drone goes to a delivery point and lands, delivers its package from the cargo compartment, then, takes off and returns. The drones can also drop without landing.
Iona also works with the Future Mobility Campus Ireland (FMCI), a hub for research, development, and innovation in international mobility and transportation based in the Shannon Free Zone. "The FMCI has a drone port and we have other partners in the area as well. So we're talking with DPD, we're talking with DSG shipping group in Foynes.
"Companies are working on offshore wind farms, they're working on offshore platforms, so it's a good way for us also to demonstrate that with the same solution, we could completely change the economy overall of this region. Because you could not only get parcels but you can also get emergency medical supplies if needed. We can support the industrial logistics operations. If you need spare parts on a ship, if you need spare parts on a offshore platform - one of the projects we have in negotiations at the moment is exactly that."
The Iona model will be to add a delivery hub to existing logistics locations including terminals and depots. “We don't need much space, depending on how many drones you need. So, if you have a depot in Cork and you need to be drone-enabled, if you have a parking lot and you have something that is about 5m x 5m, we can fence that. If you need a lot of volume, we can add robotics to it so that we automatise even more and maybe you will have a conveyor belt loading and unloading of the cargo autonomously.”
Iona is initially targeting the small and medium delivery sector. The Iona Sonnet drone has been developed in Galway and continues to be developed there. The Sonnet carries packages of up to around 10kg, with the XL drone able to carry 20kg deliveries. Iona's long-range delivery drone is designed for travel of 100km to 200kms.
"If you need a plasma TV you don't need us. And if you need coffee delivery, it's not the same business. if I use the logistics jargon, we are targeting small and medium deliveries. It covers 99% of the deliveries day to day."
The plan is for a control tower at Shannon which will be the base for logistics across Europe. Iona aims to take a leaf out of Ryanair’s model in its early commercial rollout as it looks to amortize cost. “We can do backyard deliveries if you need to but we're trying to be pragmatic. If you can deliver multiple cargo at the same time, it makes more sense.
"If I'm going to deliver to you, your neighbour, and your other neighbour at the same time, it's going to drastically reduce the cost and the impact overall of the delivery. So there is no like dystopian world in which you have like a thousand drones flying around.
“What I want to see in a place like the Aran Islands is three or four locations that are for every resident on the island a walking distance from their home. I think it it makes much more sense to to be able to be delivered at the post office or at the local shop. You can create a network that is effectively like supporting the logistics and the local economy.”
Mr Louvet says drone delivery technology represents an opportunity for the EU to take the lead globally in the sector. "We have a unique opportunity in Europe to reindustrialize and to create something that can't be offshored to other countries. Yes, if the drone was produced in China, it could be 20% or 30% less expensive. But the reality is the calculation of the unit production cost at one off is nothing compared to the operating expenditure of the drone because I need to replace the motors or the propellers every X many hours. I'm not going to offshore that. So what matters is like having an entire supply chain that works and and for me it's a great opportunity to reindustrialize and to actually do things in Europe."
Iona founder Louvet says the drones will open up a new dimension in delivery. "Organ delivery is going to be a thing but it's not where you should start. Let's start by delivering prescriptions to people in very remote places or parcels in very remote places because that's not something that requires an insane amount of supply chain complexity and is something that is quite easy to do right away because the population density is very low.
"I think the main segment for us in the short term is going to be parcels and potentially groceries or food in the middle term."
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