Manna, Irish Innovation in the Sky

Coffee from the sky: inside Manna’s drone delivery service in Dublin 15

In parts of Dublin, takeaway deliveries no longer arrive by car. They come from above.

From a launch pad at Blanchardstown Shopping Centre, Irish company Manna Air Delivery has been flying small autonomous drones over the suburb since February 2024, dropping coffees, groceries and take-away orders into gardens and driveways. For residents in the catchment area, it’s gone from novelty to routine. For the rest of Ireland, and for visitors hearing about it for the first time, it still sounds like science fiction.

Manna’s operation in Dublin 15 has already completed more than 52,000 deliveries, part of over 200,000 flights worldwide since the company was founded. The service has removed thousands of local road journeys in Blanchardstown alone, replacing short van and car trips with battery-powered flights.

What is the Manna’s drone delivery service?

At its simplest, Manna is a local delivery service that swaps vans and scooters for small aircraft. Customers order through the Manna app, choosing from 49 partner businesses in and around Blanchardstown Shopping Centre. That list includes independent Irish grocers, bookshops, clothing stores and a butcher alongside a number of national brands.

Once the order is confirmed, staff at Manna’s base pack it into a standardised cargo box. A drone is loaded, lifted to the launch point and sent on its way. The aircraft flies at up to 80 km/h, typically within a 3 km radius of the centre, though some routes stretch to 6 km.

Most deliveries take five to six minutes from loading to drop-off. When the drone reaches the delivery point, it hovers, lowers the box on a tether, releases it gently, and returns to base for the next job.

For the customer, the experience is simple: order, track the aircraft on the app, collect the parcel from the lawn or driveway. The complexity lies elsewhere.

How it works behind the scenes?

Manna’s aircraft are fully autonomous, but they don’t operate alone. Every flight is supervised from the company’s operations hub in Glasnevin, where trained staff monitor multiple missions on large screens.

Each drone follows a pre-approved flight path designed to avoid obstacles and respect agreed corridors with the Irish Aviation Authority (IAA). Onboard sensors and navigation systems manage altitude, speed and route, while ground staff can intervene if needed.

Power comes from rechargeable batteries which are swapped between flights and charged using renewable electricity. According to an independent emissions study, Manna’s drones are up to eight times more efficient in CO? terms than a petrol car doing the same delivery. The company estimates that in each suburb it operates, the service cuts local emissions by around 150 tonnes a year.

Safety?

Manna’s safety case is built on redundancy. Each aircraft has dual motors, backup communications and automatic return-to-base protocols. If something unexpected happens – a sudden change in wind, or a technical fault – the drone is designed to take the safest possible action without waiting for human input.

The operation in Dublin 15 runs at roughly 140 flights per day, serving a population of about 120,000 people. Every one of those flights is logged.

“We’re running a delivery service, not a tech experiment”

Eoghan Huston, Manna’s Chief Operating Officer, detailed that his emphasis was less on the drones themselves and more on the discipline needed to run them at scale.

“The technology does most of the work,” he said, “but what makes it real is the operational discipline. We treat every flight like an airline flight – logged, checked, verified.”

Each mission is authorised by a safety supervisor before take-off. After landing, data from the flight are reviewed and fed back into the system to improve performance and reliability.

“People assume we just press ‘go’ and the drone flies off,” Huston added. “In reality, it’s a carefully controlled environment with layers of monitoring and contingency. We’re building a delivery service, not running a tech experiment.”

A useful reminder that what looks like magic from the ground depends on routines, checklists and audit trails in the background.

The technology and the team behind it

Manna was founded in 2019 by Bobby Healy, a Dublin-born entrepreneur who believed that short-distance delivery could be done faster and with far less carbon. The company began with trials in Oranmore, Co Galway, proving that it could deliver safely over small towns before moving to larger-scale operations in Blanchardstown.

The aircraft and software are developed in Ireland. Many of the engineering team are graduates of Dublin City University, and Manna now sponsors the Immersive Software Engineering programme at the University of Limerick, reflecting its need for high-end software skills.

All operations are licensed by the IAA and compliant with EASA rules. To date, the company reports no flight-related incidents across its network.

Research, partnerships and new use cases

Manna is involved in several research and industry projects beyond its Dublin operation. It works with Finland’s VTT Technical Research Centre on how unmanned air traffic can support healthcare logistics and city-centre businesses. In the UK, it collaborates with ANRA, Wing, and Lancashire Fire & Rescue Service in a Civil Aviation Authority-backed project looking at how delivery drones and emergency drones can safely share the same airspace.

Future use cases extend beyond takeaway food and groceries. One demonstration involves rapid delivery of defibrillators, where every minute saved could make a difference in a cardiac emergency.

Manna’s investment and global ambitions

Manna’s progress has attracted serious investor interest. In March 2025, the company raised €30 million in a round co-led by Tapestry VC and Molten Ventures, with participation from Enterprise Ireland, Coca-Cola HBC, Dynamo VC and others, bringing total funding at that point to over €60 million.

In October 2025, it went a step further. The Ark Venture Fund, part of US firm Ark Invest led by Cathie Wood, took a multimillion-dollar stake in Manna. The Business Post reported the investment as an eight-figure sum, and Ark now lists Manna among portfolio companies that include OpenAI, SpaceX and Anthropic.

Manna expects to reach around €6 million in revenue in 2025, driven by its Blanchardstown operation and trials in the US and Finland, with further sites planned.

Local context, and what comes next

As with any visible new technology, public reaction in Dublin 15 is mixed. Many residents enjoy the speed and convenience. Others have concerns about noise, privacy and the prospect of more drones in the sky. Manna continues to engage with local representatives and regulators as the service develops.

For now, what’s clear is that an Irish-designed system is showing, in a very practical way, how autonomous flight can fit into everyday life. From a test in Galway to thousands of flights over Blanchardstown, Manna has turned an idea about cleaner local logistics into a working example of what the future of delivery might look like.

More about Manna

• Takes flight with additional funding ,
• Takes to the skies for March Commercial Pilot
• Winners in Ireland’s National Startup Awards
• Dublin Drone Delivery Revolution Reaches Austrian Radio

Billy Linehan

Billy Linehan writes for Irish Tech News on innovation, tech for good, and entrepreneurship, covering events in Ireland and abroad. A business mentor and consultant with Celtar Advisers, he has advised hundreds of SME and startup owners. Outside work, he’s passionate about the environment and heritage, and believes our history shapes both people and place. He co-founded StartUp Ballymun, Dublin’s longest-running entrepreneurship series.

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