XSun's EIC Accelerator Solar Drone: From Grant to Restructuring

XSun's SolarXOne is a 4.6-metre tandem-wing drone that charges its batteries from solar cells on its wings while it flies. On 7 July 2020 it took off at 8:30 in the morning and landed at 8:35 in the evening, after a 600-kilometre autonomous flight, according to the company's press release. Five months earlier the European Union had started paying for SX1.3, a €2.66 million project to industrialise the aircraft, with a grant of €1,864,450. On 16 September 2026 the commercial court of Saint-Nazaire opened a redressement judiciaire, the French court-supervised reorganisation, and set the date on which XSun stopped paying its debts at 16 March 2025, according to the BODACC notice published on 2 October 2026 and Societe.com.

The drone works, and it has flown paid missions. What did not arrive is the business the project was written to build: the 2019 proposal forecast revenue "reaching 30 M€ in 2025", while the last filed accounts, for 2024, show €264,748 of sales and a net loss of €2.59 million.

Where XSun Stands Now

XSun is in court-supervised restructuring, not liquidation. The judgment of 16 September 2026 opens an observation period during which the company keeps operating under a court-appointed administrator while a reorganisation plan, a sale or a liquidation is decided; Societe.com gives 16 March 2027 as the end of that period. The French government's company directory still lists XSun as active, with 10 to 19 employees in 2024. Why the court set the cessation of payments eighteen months before the judgment is not stated in the notice.

The public record before the judgment showed a company still selling. The company's own news page lists its last items in 2024: a prospecting mission in the United States with TotalEnergies in June and a fire detection project called CONDOR in February. In June 2025 XSun and the French hydrogen specialist H3 Dynamics announced a solar, hydrogen and battery version of SolarXOne, with test flights planned in Toulouse in October 2025, according to pv magazine and Unmanned Systems Technology. No result of those flights has been published. In February 2026 XSun showed SolarXOne as a reconnaissance drone at the World Defense Show in Riyadh, Oboronka reported.

The Technology: Two Wings and the Sun

Most long-range survey drones are either small battery aircraft that fly for one or two hours, or fuel-powered fixed-wing machines that are noisy and costly to run. XSun's design uses a patented double, or tandem, wing: two wings one behind the other, both covered in thin solar cells. The batteries lift the aircraft and the cells recharge them in flight. "Solar power increases the on-board battery life by a factor of 3," Benjamin David, who spent a decade at Airbus Defence and Space before founding XSun, told drive.tech. The drone is launched from a catapult and lands by parachute, according to the 2026 presentation reported by Oboronka, and the company's website says it is quieter than 42 decibels.

The specifications differ by source and by date. The SX1.3 proposal on CORDIS promised a 7 kg payload and more than 600 km a day. The company's website gives up to 12 hours of flight and a 4 kg payload; drive.tech gives 5 kg and a 4.5-metre span; the 2026 Riyadh presentation gave up to 8 kg. In February 2020, before the record flight, XSun described about 7 hours on batteries plus "at least 7 additional hours" from the solar cells, according to Business Solutions Atlantic France. Which payload the production aircraft actually carries over a full 12-hour mission could not be verified.

What SX1.3 Promised, and What CORDIS Shows

XSun is the only company named for SX1.3 in the Commission's list of the October 2019 EIC Accelerator pilot winners, as a blended finance award, a grant combined with an offer of equity. The Centrale Nantes press kit put the total funding available at €5.3 million; CORDIS shows the grant share of €1,864,450. The project ran from 3 February 2020 to 2 February 2022, with the grant agreement signed on 16 June 2020. The proposal set out to industrialise production with better performance, add a hydrogen power option and vertical take-off, demonstrate the drone for infrastructure, fire detection, maritime surveillance and agriculture, and open two operating centres, in France and Germany.

The final periodic report is short. It says the team optimised the earlier aircraft's aerodynamics, structure, energy system, communications and safety, passed the critical design review, and "undertaken" the production organisation and the certification roadmap, and set up a security advisory board. It does not mention hydrogen, vertical take-off or the operating centres, and it reports no sales.

1. Improved, industrialised SolarXOnePartly deliveredCritical design review passed and production organised, per CORDIS; the drone is sold, but the planned 100 a year from 2025 has not been reported.
2. Hydrogen power optionNot achievedNot in the final report; still a research topic in the ICARE lab from 2023 and the 2025 H3 Dynamics partnership.
3. Vertical take-offNot achievedICARE lists VTOL as a research axis to 2028; the 2026 aircraft still uses a catapult.
4. Market demonstrationsDeliveredMissions for Enedis and Agenium named at the award, and a 2024 prospecting mission with TotalEnergies in the US; no demonstration reports are published.
5. Operating centres in France and GermanyUnverifiedIn November 2022 XSun said its team worked in France, Germany and Australia; no German centre has been announced.
6. Revenue reaching €30M in 2025Not achieved€264,748 in 2024.

Judged as a technology project, SX1.3 was not a failure: the aircraft was refined, passed its design review and kept flying commercially. Two of the headline technical additions, hydrogen and vertical take-off, did not happen within the project and were still being researched four years after it ended.

What XSun Achieved After the Award

The equity side of the award did arrive. In November 2022 XSun closed a €5.3 million round with the EIC Fund, the Munich investment company Friedrich & Wagner Holding and the regional fund Pays de la Loire Participations, to industrialise SolarXOne, expand to Germany, the United Kingdom and Australia and develop a second-generation aircraft, according to Fiscalonline and Business Solutions Atlantic France, which said the team then numbered 25 and planned to turn its 1,100 square-metre workshop into a factory producing 100 drones a year from 2025. XSun appears in the EIC Fund's list of invested companies and has its own portfolio page; neither gives the amount or the date of the EIC Fund's stake. The register shows share capital increases in January 2022, August 2022 and April 2025, the last of €17,189 in nominal value through preference shares, per BODACC and Societe.com.

Customers came in single projects. The Centrale Nantes press kit named Enedis, France's power distribution operator, for power line surveillance, and Agenium for agriculture. In October 2023 XSun and Nantes University's IREENA laboratory started ICARE, a joint laboratory funded with €363,000 by the French research agency ANR until October 2028, to work on solar-hydrogen power and vertical take-off.

The largest announced deal was abroad. In December 2024 a Saudi company, Qiddiya Air, said it would build a factory for XSun's solar drones in Riyadh under the name Xsun KSA, with an initial investment of $10 million, construction from early 2025 and full technology transfer within three years, according to Al Eqtisadiah, which quoted the Saudi company's owner, and Enterprise, which quoted Benjamin David. Enterprise said the first phase covered two drones and spare parts for six. Whether the factory was built, or any drones delivered, could not be verified.

The Money

XSun's accounts for 2019 and 2020 were filed confidential, and the 2020 filing shows no revenue figure. From 2021 the figures are public in the INPI ratios dataset of the French Ministry of Economy, and the 2024 figures match the government's company directory. Revenue grew each year from 2022, but never reached €300,000, while the net loss rose from €877,821 in 2020 to €2,589,018 in 2024. Societe.com gives a 2022 loss of about €2.61 million, which does not match the €1,226,881 net result in the INPI data; this article uses the INPI figure.

Why Europe Should Care

The Commission's Drone Strategy 2.0 of 29 November 2022 estimates that drone services in Europe could be worth €14.5 billion and employ 145,000 people by 2030, and names mapping, inspection and surveillance among the uses it expects. A European long-endurance survey drone that runs on sunlight fits that plan and the EU's push for low-emission aviation, and it is a dual-use asset: XSun has marketed the same aircraft for maritime border surveillance, according to Dassault Systèmes' 3DEXPERIENCE Lab, and for military reconnaissance in Riyadh. Its most concrete announced industrial deal, though, would according to the Saudi owner and Enterprise move production and the technology itself to Saudi Arabia within three years, which would run against the strategic autonomy the EIC Fund's equity was meant to support if the factory is built.

The Verdict

XSun and its court administrator have not been asked for comment for this article. It is based entirely on public records, company statements and EU project data, linked throughout.