• Funding will support the development and deployment of Sapient Perception’s physical AI sensors for unmanned systems, designed to expand coverage while preserving the detail needed for real-world decisions.
• Sapient’s technology is built to eliminate the tradeoff between wide-area coverage and actionable detail, with the company highlighting up to 108x larger coverage per image and up to 1.5x better detection accuracy.
• The company is led by Anthony Garetto, Lau Nørgaard, and Michael Messerschmidt, a founding team with deep experience across imaging, sensor architecture, and UAV payload ecosystems.
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Sapient Perception, a Danish dual-use deep-tech company focused on enabling physical AI for autonomy, today announced its emergence from stealth following a €2 million pre-seed investment co-led by Balnord and FORWARD.one. The funding will support the company’s next phase of development as it brings its perception platform into real-world mission-critical deployments.
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Sapient Perception is building physical AI sensors for unmanned systems across defense, security, and emergency response. Its core promise is simple: help operators cover far larger areas without losing the level of detail needed to make confident decisions in the field. The company frames this as eliminating the longstanding tradeoff between coverage and resolution, enabling wide-area perception and trusted insights in real time.
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That matters because today’s imaging systems often force operators into an impossible choice. When zoomed out, they can monitor large areas but lose the resolution needed to identify threats or detect important events. When zoomed in, they regain detail but lose awareness of the surrounding environment. Sapient’s platform is built to solve exactly that problem, delivering persistent large-area perception together with actionable, real-time information at the edge.
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Sapient is initially deploying its technology on UAVs, where real-time situational awareness is essential and connectivity is often constrained. The company is targeting three primary sectors: defense, public safety, and critical infrastructure. Across these domains, the goal is the same — to improve decision quality and response times in environments where every second matters.
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What stood out to us is the scale of the improvement. Sapient says its system can deliver up to 108 times larger coverage per image and up to 1.5 times improvement in detection accuracy. The company’s proposition can be expressed very simply: fewer assets, better awareness, faster action.
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The product is also clearly designed for practical deployment. Sapient’s system is SWaP-optimized, modular, NDAA-compliant, ITAR-free, and integration-ready for UAV platforms, with standard interfaces and onboard edge processing in a lightweight package. That combination makes it especially relevant for European and allied ecosystems looking for deployable, trusted sensing infrastructure for autonomous and semi-autonomous systems.

‍Jarek Pilarczyk, Partner at Balnord:

“Modern defense and security operations are not taking advantage of the most advanced sensors and the vast data they generate. Sapient Perception addresses this challenge with a highly differentiated edge AI approach that we believe will become foundational to next-generation systems.”

Anthony Garetto, CEO and co-founder of Sapient Perception:

“Our technology enables persistent coverage over larger and more complex environments than previously available, while putting only context-relevant information directly in the hands of the operator in real time. We eliminate the coverage vs. detail tradeoff inherent in current ISR solutions.”

Behind the company is a founding team with the right depth for a challenge like this. Anthony Garetto, CEO, brings experience in scaling advanced imaging and optical technologies internationally across semiconductor, medical, and aerospace markets. CTO Lau Nørgaard contributes more than 20 years of experience in advanced imaging architecture and sensor integration. CBO Michael Messerschmidt adds more than 15 years of experience in UAV payload ecosystems, product strategy, and high-technology business development.
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Sapient Perception is actively engaging with defense companies, system integrators, and strategic partners in Europe and North America to explore pilots and longer-term collaboration. We are excited to support Anthony, Lau, Michael, and the broader team as they build a category-defining company in physical AI sensing for unmanned systems.

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