Avientus: The Venture Leader Technology simplifying transportation with drones

23.03.2026 10:00, Rita Longobardi

Meet Johannes Aicher, founder of Johannes Aicher. The robotics startup disrupts urgent B2B deliveries with a fully automated, sustainable drone-based logistics system. Johannes and the other nine Swiss National Technology Team members will fly to Silicon Valley in April.

Name: Johannes Aicher
Location: Zurich
Nationality: German
Graduated from: ETH Zurich
Prior role: Development Engineer at Sauber F1
Founding team members: 3
Number of employees: 10
Money raised: CHF 1M

What does your product or solution do, and what makes it unique?
At Avientus, we develop a novel kind of transport drones, for example, for delivering critical supplies in disaster areas. Our unique, patent-pending design requires only two motors for vertical lift-off and flight, giving us more speed and range at lower noise levels than currently used transport drones. While we want to start in Defense, our long-term goal is to offer B2B express delivery, outside of cities – our system is uniquely qualified for that by its scalable, cost-effective design, allowing a fully autonomous workflow. 

What trend or shift in your industry is currently creating the biggest opportunity for you?
The war in Ukraine results in hundreds of transport drones being built per month. While this is a human catastrophe, it is undoubtedly a huge push for development and mass deployment of drones and shows the potential of unmanned systems when not constrained by regulatory hurdles.

How did the idea for your startup originate?
In the civilian market, several transport drone startups exist. As engineers, we were unhappy with their complicated concepts, from a technical and commercial point of view. We came up with a leaner, more elegant design. Now we want to bring it to success.  

Which market are you addressing, and what potential do you see for your startup in that market?
For regulatory reasons, we focus on the defense market first, clients ranging from armed forces to defense companies, who can use our drones for sensor deployment or spare part delivery. Later, we will address the B2B express delivery market, replacing manned van drives or helicopter deliveries. 

What impact do you want your technology to have five years from now?
As a company building drones, we would prefer not to have any impact ;-) – jokes aside, our goal is to have a growing network of base stations and drones, delivering urgent goods every day – from distribution centers to industry sites, or pharmacies to hospitals.

What major challenges have you faced so far?
Our drone prototypes crashed several times. It took us 9 months to get our drone to fly reliably - while that was expected, it was a challenge for Avientus. 

What motivates you on tough days?
I have a small model of our drone on my desk- having the clear goal of pushing this superior concept to the market motivates me every day. And I get inspired and motivated by my amazing Co-Founders. 

Why did you decide to join the Venture Leaders Roadshow, and what are you most excited about?
There were several aspects:
> The timing matches our funding round perfectly;
> The US is an interesting market, especially for the civilian use case;
> I am very much looking forward to getting to know the other startups better.