Mutable Tactics, a Cambridge-based DefenceTech startup specialising in agentic AI for defence and security, has closed a €1.8 million ($2.1 million) pre‑Seed funding round.
The round was led by Seraphim Space, with support from the UK’s National Security Strategic Investment Fund, Koro, Entrepreneurs First, and Transpose. The funding will accelerate the development of AI software that enables unmanned systems, such as aerial, maritime, or ground drones, to operate and make decisions even when communications are lost or unreliable.
Colin MacLeod, CEO and co‑founder of Mutable Tactics, said, “Increasingly, the constraint is no longer hardware but human attention. We can deploy more drones than ever before, yet we still ask operators to control them one by one, often in environments where communications are unreliable. True autonomy breaks that one‑to‑one link, allowing humans to supervise and direct teams of systems rather than individual machines. That shift is essential for supporting modern military missions, where scale, speed and resilience matter, and where operators must remain focused on intent and outcomes rather than manual control.”
Founded in August 2024 by former British Army officer Colin MacLeod and robotics and AI specialist Enrique Muñoz de Cote, Mutable Tactics was founded to bridge the widening gap between the rapid deployment of unmanned systems and humans’ ability to operate them efficiently in real-world operational settings.
The British robotics autonomy company claims to focus on the “Decide” layer of the sense-decide-act loop, enabling true multi-domain autonomy and resilient, explainable decision-making at the edge.
The company states that defence forces are increasingly deploying unmanned systems across land, sea, and air. Although sensors and platforms have advanced quickly, autonomous operating decision‑making has not kept pace. Consequently, deployments typically involve a single operator managing a single system, limiting the number of drones that can be effectively used simultaneously. In environments with contested or disrupted communication, systems that depend on ongoing human control face major challenges, the company stated.
Mutable Tactics claims to address this challenge by enabling mixed fleets of drones to operate together as a coordinated team, rather than as individually piloted platforms. The company is building an AI‑powered decision layer positioned between the human operator and the robot. This software translates a commander’s high‑level intent and constraints into locally executable actions, allowing drones to adapt to changing conditions and coordinate with one another even when communications or GPS are unreliable.
The startup states that instead of relying on ongoing human input or persistent connectivity, decisions are made locally at the tactical edge within specific boundaries defined by the human operator. The result is scalable human‑machine teaming. One operator can supervise and direct multiple unmanned systems, rather than manually controlling each one. This removes the human bottleneck and enables forces to make effective use of larger numbers of drones in complex, contested environments.
Its flagship product, Mastermind (MT), is an edge-deployed AI orchestration system for multi-robot systems (i.e., a system-of-systems). MT’s AI runs on commercial edge compute and enables a single operator to coordinate multiple autonomous systems.
“Importantly, Mutable Tactics is designed to maintain meaningful human control at all times. Military officers retain responsibility for mission intent, rules and constraints, and can intervene or assume direct control whenever required. The system is built to adjust smoothly as conditions change—such as when communications or GPS drop in and out—without creating autonomous behaviour that cannot be understood or managed,” the company mentioned in the press release.
Mutual Tactics explains the process with an example of a unit that has several drones available but only one trained operator. It emphasises that the limitation isn’t the number of drones but human attention. That operator can actively control only one system at a time, leaving the others underused during critical moments.
The company allows the operator to focus on the highest-priority task, while the [coordination software] oversees the other drones, guiding their movements, adapting to shifting conditions, and positioning them in line with the commander’s intent and constraints, even in the event of communication or GPS failures. This goes beyond basic autopilot, claims the company. Once the first task is finished, the operator can instantly take manual control of another drone, enabling a single individual to accomplish much more while staying fully in charge.
“There is no single AI technique that solves autonomy. Deep learning allows systems to operate in uncertain, real-world environments, while deterministic AI ensures their behaviour remains explainable and aligned with a commander’s intent. Combining both enables autonomy that is resilient in contested environments while preserving meaningful human control – critical for military deployments. That fusion sits at the core of Mutable Tactics, and the UK’s leadership in probabilistic inference provides an essential foundation for this work,” said Enrique Muñoz de Cote, CTO and co-founder of Mutable Tactics.
Beyond defence, closing the decision gap is key to next-gen robotics and AI. As systems operate outside controlled settings, making reliable decisions under uncertainty is essential for scaling, notes Mutable Tactics.
The fresh capital will be used by the company to expand its engineering team in Cambridge and accelerate development of its decision‑layer software. The funds will also be deployed to develop and validate the technology in collaboration with two key European governments, supporting priority defence missions under real operational conditions. It will also support integration work with unmanned‑system partners and preparation for live demonstrations in demanding environments.
“Mutable Tactics is building drone autonomy for modern conflicts: contested, jammed, and often GPS-denied environments. Most autonomy assumes clean communications and high-end platforms. Mutable’s software lets low-cost drones operate as coordinated teams when communications degrade, giving operators faster decisions and better outcomes without upgrading every platform. As space investors, we like that the system is designed to keep working across satellite, alternative navigation, and manual modes without changing kit. Colin and Enrique bring a rare mix of battlefield insight and true robotics autonomy expertise,” said Maureen Haverty, Principal at Seraphim Space.
Last month, the London-based SpaceTech investment group closed its oversubscribed early-stage venture fund, exceeding its previous €84 million ($100 million) target.
Read the orginal article: https://www.eu-startups.com/2026/03/cambridge-based-mutable-tactics-closes-e1-8-million-pre-seed-to-power-coordinated-drone-team-autonomy-using-ai/
