Ronan Nopp is Co-Founder and CEO of Voltair, a Y Combinator-backed drone technology company building autonomous drones that recharge directly on power lines for continuous infrastructure inspection. Voltair is pioneering AI-powered solutions to prevent wildfires and power outages by enabling unlimited-range drone inspections of electrical grids.

Ronan graduated in 2025 with a B.S. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of Washington, where he independently designed and tuned the controls system for a manned eVTOL aircraft. His passion for engineering began with designing remote control airplanes, which led him to develop deep expertise in commercial drone technology.

Ronan co-founded Voltair with childhood friend Hayden Gosch during their final year at UW, and the company became the first team to win both the UW Environmental Innovation Challenge and Dempsey Startup Competition in the same year. The team won over $40,000 in prize money across competitions and was accepted into Y Combinator's Winter 2026 batch.

Under Ronan's leadership, Voltair has built 6 flying prototypes, validated its core charging technology on actual power lines, and inspected approximately 2,000 utility poles since June 2025. Voltair's autonomous drones deliver 10x faster inspections at half the cost of manual operators, with plans to expand beyond power utilities into rail, telecom, and other infrastructure markets.

Voltair's breakthrough technology enables drones with infinite range by perching on transmission lines to recharge, addressing the critical wildfire liability crisis that costs utilities billions annually. The company aims to eliminate wildfire risk for utilities using their technology and envisions becoming a new infrastructure layer for data on the physical world.