Shield AI
Gary Steele
Data verified as of Aug 18, 2026
Summary
Shield AI sells the pilot, not the plane. Its Hivemind autonomy software flies aircraft that have lost GPS and communications, and in June 2026 the Air Force put it on contract for Collaborative Combat Aircraft mission autonomy: six vendors hold baseline six-year contracts, but only Shield AI, Anduril and RTX Collins Aerospace were funded for the first of two six-month competitive phases that decide the program's primary autonomy provider by summer 2027. The company was founded in San Diego in 2015 by former Navy SEAL Brandon Tseng, his brother Ryan Tseng, and Andrew Reiter, and is run since March 2025 by CEO Gary Steele, formerly of Proofpoint and Splunk. Its hardware business is the MQ-35 V-BAT, a 161-pound tail-sitting VTOL drone flown by five US services and militaries from Ukraine to Japan, selected in April 2026 to compete for up to $800 million in Navy contractor-operated ISR task orders. Its bet on the future is X-BAT, an autonomous VTOL fighter with a GE F110 engine and thrust-vectoring nozzle, meant to fly from anywhere with no runway: engine light-off and nozzle integration completed July 20, 2026, with first vertical flights due late 2026, mission capability in 2028, and production in 2029. Shield AI raised $2 billion in March 2026 at a $12.7 billion valuation, more than doubling its prior mark, and is projecting more than $540 million of revenue in 2026 against roughly $300 million the prior fiscal year. The counterweight to all of it is reliability: a June 2026 Reuters investigation documented more than 50 V-BAT crashes in 18 months and an injury to a Romanian navy officer during training, and whistleblower complaints alleging safety concerns were dismissed.
Main Products
A 161-pound tail-sitting drone that takes off and lands vertically from a small deck or a clearing, then flies horizontally for 13 hours at up to 18,000 feet on a single heavy-fuel engine. Hivemind runs onboard with visual odometry, so it keeps navigating when GPS and communications are jammed, which is why it has stayed useful in Ukraine where cheaper drones have not. It carries electro-optical and mid-wave infrared sensors and is flown by five US services plus a widening list of allied navies and armies.
In serial production and operationally deployed; competing for up to $800M in Navy ISR task orders since April 2026.
An autonomous VTOL fighter meant to erase the runway from the problem: it takes off and lands vertically from a truck bed, a clearing, or a ship, then flies more than 2,000 nautical miles at above 50,000 feet with internal and external weapons bays for air-to-air, air-to-surface, and electronic warfare missions. Propulsion is a GE Aerospace F110-GE-129E with the AVEN thrust-vectoring nozzle, integrated and light-off tested on July 20, 2026. Three fit in the deck space of one legacy fighter, and one commander is meant to direct a team of them through Hivemind.
Propulsion integration complete July 2026; first vertical flights due late 2026, mission capability 2028, production 2029.
The autonomy stack that is the actual company. Hivemind flies aircraft with no GPS, no waypoints, and no remote pilot, has been piloted across 26 vehicle classes including F-16s, helicopters, drone boats, and ground vehicles, and descends from the Heron Systems agent that beat a human F-16 pilot 5-0 in DARPA's AlphaDogfight trials. Hivemind Enterprise packages it as a developer platform for other manufacturers, and the Hivemind Foundation Model for Defense is trained in simulation, which is what the March 2026 Aechelon acquisition bought.
Fielded across US military programs and on Air Force contract for CCA mission autonomy since June 2026.
What's Next
Fly X-BAT vertically for the first time
With the F110 engine and AVEN nozzle integrated and lit off in July 2026, the next gate is the aircraft leaving the ground under its own power. Shield AI has targeted first vertical flights for late 2026, and until X-BAT hovers, the runway-free fighter thesis is a render and a test stand.
Win the CCA primary mission-autonomy selection
The Air Force is running two six-month competitive phases, with Shield AI, Anduril and RTX Collins Aerospace funded for the first, before naming a primary mission-autonomy provider for CCA Increment 1 by summer 2027. Whoever wins supplies the brain for at least 150 combat aircraft this decade, on airframes built by General Atomics and Anduril, so this single decision is worth more to Shield AI than any hardware program it owns. Shield AI expects to begin flight testing Hivemind on Anduril's YFQ-44A while Collins' rival Sidekick software is already flying on General Atomics' YFQ-42A.
Operations & Revenue
V-BAT is in serial production and deployed with five US services and a growing list of allied militaries, flying counter-narcotics missions in the Caribbean and Pacific, shipboard ISR for the Dutch and Romanian navies, and targeting missions in Ukraine through heavy electronic warfare jamming. Hivemind is fielded across 26 vehicle classes and is now one of three autonomy stacks funded by the Air Force for Collaborative Combat Aircraft. X-BAT is in build and ground test at Newton, Kansas, with propulsion integration complete as of July 2026 and first vertical flights due before year end. The open question is reliability at scale: Reuters reported more than 50 V-BAT crashes over 18 months in June 2026, and Shield AI has been adding autonomous launch and recovery to remove the human handling that caused two propeller injuries.
Revenue Streams
V-BAT aircraft sales and ISR services
Direct sales of MQ-35 V-BAT systems to US and allied militaries, plus contractor-owned, contractor-operated ISR services where Shield AI flies the missions itself: a $198M Coast Guard COCO contract awarded in 2024 and selection in April 2026 to compete for up to $800M in Navy ISR task orders.
Government contracts for the autonomy software itself, now anchored by the six-year Air Force CCA mission-autonomy production contract awarded June 2026, with a primary-provider down-select due by summer 2027.
Selling the autonomy developer platform to other manufacturers, governments, and robotics companies rather than only flying it on Shield AI hardware. This was the stated purpose of the March 2025 F-1 round, which brought L3Harris and Hanwha Aerospace in as strategic investors.
Key Metrics
Employees
~1,700 (third-party workforce tracker, June 2026)
Est. Annual Revenue
Roughly $300M in the fiscal year ended March 2025, with the company projecting more than 80% growth to at least $540M in 2026 and CEO Gary Steele targeting $1B by the fiscal year ending March 2028. Shield AI is private and these are company projections rather than audited figures.
CCA Autonomy Contract
One of six vendors holding baseline six-year Air Force mission-autonomy contracts, and one of three funded for the first competitive phase (June 17, 2026); primary provider for Increment 1 selected by summer 2027
Navy ISR Ceiling
Up to $800M in contractor-owned, contractor-operated ISR task orders to compete for (April 2026)
Hivemind Reach
Piloted across 26 vehicle classes, from F-16s and helicopters to drone boats and ground vehicles
Timeline
On March 26, 2026 Shield AI announces $2 billion of new capital: a $1.5 billion Series G led by Advent International and co-led by JPMorganChase's Strategic Investment Group, plus $500 million of preferred equity from Blackstone and a further $250 million delayed-draw facility. Valuation reaches $12.7 billion, up roughly 140%. In the same announcement it acquires Aechelon Technology, a high-fidelity simulation company, to train the Hivemind Foundation Model for Defense in simulation.
On April 20, 2026 the Navy selects Shield AI to compete for task orders under an up-to-$800 million contractor-owned, contractor-operated ISR program flown with V-BAT. The company cites more than 100,000 pounds of narcotics interdicted, hundreds of targeting operations in Ukraine, and prior Coast Guard and Marine Corps deployments as the track record behind the selection.
A Reuters investigation published June 5, 2026 reports more than 50 V-BAT crashes over 18 months, an incident on May 12, 2026 in which a Romanian navy officer lost two fingers to a V-BAT propeller during a training exercise off the Texas coast, and whistleblower complaints alleging that employees raising safety concerns were pushed out. It follows an April 2024 incident in which a V-BAT partially amputated three fingers of a US Navy service member, after which Shield AI developed unassisted launch and recovery.
On June 17, 2026, alongside the FQ-42A and FQ-44A airframe production awards, the Air Force sets up Collaborative Combat Aircraft mission autonomy as its own competition. Six vendors receive baseline six-year contracts (Anduril, General Atomics, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, RTX Collins Aerospace and Shield AI), and three of them, Shield AI among them, win competitive production awards funding the first of two six-month phases, leading to the selection of a primary autonomy provider for Increment 1 by summer 2027. Treating autonomy as a separately competed capability rather than a subsystem of the airframe is what puts a software company on equal footing with the airframe primes.
On July 20, 2026 Shield AI and GE Aerospace complete integration, actuation, and engine light-off of the F110-GE-129E with AVEN, an axisymmetric vectoring exhaust nozzle originally built for an F-16 thrust-vectoring program in the 1990s and refurbished for X-BAT. GE calls it the first fully integrated test campaign of its kind since that program, and it clears the propulsion path to vertical flight.
In June 2026 Poland signs a roughly $16 million deal for MQ-35 V-BAT systems for the Polish Navy, with deliveries due by the end of the year. It follows the Royal Netherlands Navy declaring V-BAT operational in March 2026 after shipboard trials aboard HNLMS Johan de Witt off northern Norway, with 12 systems bought for eight vessels.
On March 6, 2025 Shield AI raises $240 million in an F-1 round at a $5.3 billion valuation, with strategic money from L3Harris and Hanwha Aerospace alongside Andreessen Horowitz, aimed at selling Hivemind Enterprise to other manufacturers rather than only flying it in-house. Days later, on March 12, enterprise-software veteran Gary Steele is named CEO, with co-founder Ryan Tseng moving to president.
In October 2025 Shield AI reveals X-BAT, an autonomous VTOL fighter with more than 2,000 nautical miles of range and a 50,000-foot ceiling, designed so three fit in the deck space of one legacy fighter. GE Aerospace is selected as propulsion partner in November 2025, and a flight-test site is stood up at Newton City/County Airport in Kansas.
Shield AI buys Martin UAV, which brings the V-BAT airframe, and Heron Systems, whose AI agent had beaten a human F-16 pilot 5-0 in DARPA's AlphaDogfight trials. The two purchases turn a small-drone company into an autonomy company with a Group 3 aircraft to sell.
Brandon Tseng, a Navy SEAL who watched his unit take casualties clearing buildings blind in Uruzgan province, starts Shield AI in San Diego with his brother Ryan Tseng and engineer Andrew Reiter, on $100,000 from friends and family. The founding product is Nova, a quadcopter that maps and searches buildings on its own with no GPS and no operator stick time.
Funding
Cumulative disclosed raise · dated rounds
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