Irish Drone Delivery Startup Opens US Factory in Tulsa

Manna Aero, an Irish company that delivers packages by drone, is building a large operations and manufacturing center in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The facility will eventually employ about 1,000 people, with manufacturing starting in roughly a year. CEO Bobby Healy told TechCrunch the company is already running test flights at the Tulsa location, which sits at the intersection of 15th Street and Utica Avenue, according to News on 6.

How Manna's Drones Work

Manna's delivery system uses drones that don't land in your yard. Instead, they hover above the ground and lower packages down on a tether—like a rope—so the package reaches you without the drone itself touching down. This is the same approach used by other major drone delivery companies like Amazon and Alphabet's Wing.

The company operates through several channels: it charges customers per delivery flight, partners with food delivery apps in Europe like DoorDash and Uber Eats, works with business customers, and has its own consumer app.

The US Expansion

Healy's goal is to grow Manna into one of the top drone delivery operators in America, competing with Zipline, Amazon, and Wing. The company is hiring 200 to 300 people for US operations over the next year, separate from the Tulsa factory workers. It is also looking at six additional US cities to start service by the end of 2027.

This expansion follows a $50 million investment the company raised in April 2026. Manna also hired Kenny Jacobs, a former executive at the airline Ryanair, as executive chair and president specifically to lead the US push.

Manna is not new to the United States. It began operations in 2023 near Dallas, in a planned community called AllianceTexas, and has expanded across the Dallas-Fort Worth area since then. The company plans to keep scaling in that region.

Why Tulsa, and Why Now

Healy told TechCrunch that faster-moving U.S. federal rules on drone operations gave the company confidence to invest heavily here. The company's own characterization is that Trump administration and FAA moves have given the drone delivery sector a "turbo boost"—though this is Manna's assessment, not an independent evaluation of regulation.

The timing is notable because Manna actually scaled back its drone delivery operations in Ireland just a month before the Tulsa announcement. The company cited a lack of clear planning rules at home that would allow it to expand. Manna will keep its headquarters, research, and office functions in Ireland, with manufacturing now split between Dublin and Oklahoma.

What This Shift Means

Several years ago, most people in the drone industry expected Europe to lead on drone rules, with the United States lagging behind. What's happening now inverts that expectation: an Irish company that proved itself in a business-friendly European environment is now moving its manufacturing to America because U.S. policy is moving faster. That is a real change in how the regulatory landscape shapes where drone companies grow.

That said, drone delivery has a history of announcing ambitious expansion plans that outrun what actually gets delivered on the ground. Whether Tulsa becomes a real manufacturing hub depends on how many flights Manna actually runs once the factory is operating. The six new cities the company plans to enter by the end of 2027, and whether local permits come through on schedule, will show whether Manna can execute at the scale it promises.