In Brief

Posted:

11:05 AM PDT · March 26, 2026

Image Credits:Shield AI. Photo by Rod Lamkey, Jr.

- Julie Bort

Defense startup Shield AI lands $12.7B valuation, up 140%, after US Air Force deal

Autonomous military aircraft maker Shield AI has raised $1.5 billion in Series G funding at a $12.7 billion post-money valuation, the company announced on Tuesday. The deal was led by PE firm Advent (which has a $1 billion budget to invest in defense tech, it says) and a JPMorganChase investment group.

In addition, Shield AI sold $500 million of preferred shares to funds managed by Blackstone (and also lined up a $250 million loan that it can draw on later). This capital is helping Shield acquire Aechelon Technology, maker of flight simulation tech used to train U.S. military pilots. Terms of that acquisition were not disclosed.

The new round comes after Shield raised $240 million at a $5.3 billion valuation in March 2025. That means its value leaped 140% in one year. There’s a good reason for that: Shield AI’s Hivemind autonomy software was selected in February as a provider for the U.S. Air Force Collaborative Combat Aircraft drone prototype program.

Interestingly, Shield’s software was selected to work with competitor Anduril for its “Fury” autonomous fighter jet. Anduril, of course, has its own software, called Lattice, to command its Fury aircraft. But the Air Force clearly doesn’t want to be locked into a single vendor for the whole stack of its next-gen warfighter drone fleet.

Still, Anduril will hardly be phased by sharing some of the spoils. It last raised $2.5 billion at a $30.5 billion valuation in June and word on the street is that it’s looking to raise up to $8 billion at $60 billion valuation.

Other investors participating in Shield’s Series G include Snowpoint Ventures, InnovationX, Riot Ventures, Disruptive, and Apandion.

Topics

anduril, autonomous aircraft, defense tech, drones, In Brief, shield ai, Startups, TC, Transportation

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