Shield AI acquires radar firm Echodyne in $5.3B deal. The deal, which is expected to close in early 2027, will give Shield an in-house counter-UAS offering By Aaron Mehta on November 05, 2026 11:30 am WASHINGTON - Defense tech firm Shield AI is acquiring Echodyne, a provider of counter-drone radar systems, in a $5.3 billion deal, the companies announced today. The deal, which is expected to close in early 2027, will give Shield an in-house counter-UAS offering, according to a company statement. Echodyne says its counter-drone systems are "used by defense, government and commercial customers in more than 40 countries." Further, its Metamaterials Electronically Scanned Array (MESA) system was selected in September by the Pentagon's Joint Interagency Task Force 401 to supply counter-drone systems to the US military. The addition of a counter-drone radar system is an interesting add to Shield, which has several different product lines, ranging from autonomy software that has been used on multiple Pentagon projects, to the large X-Bat drone the company now hopes to market globally. Shield has a history of product expansion through acquisition. It's V-Bat drone, and hence the push for X-Bat, came form a 2021 acquisition of Martin UAV. And earlier this year, the firm closed on the purchase of Aechelon Technologies, a simulation software firm. "The acquisition of Echodyne dramatically accelerates our efforts to meet growing customer demand for multi-mission capabilities, provides increased access to a rapidly expanding counter-drone industry, and further diversifies our revenue streams with sustained, compelling growth for the combined company," Shield CEO Gary Steele said in a statement, noting the company structure now consists of three buckets: autonomy software, autonomous systems and mission systems. "Hundreds of customers rely on our radars to detect and track drones, protect people and infrastructure, secure borders, and ensure safe airspace operations. Shield shares our view that autonomous systems can only act on what they can sense, and superior sensors lead to superior systems and outcomes," Echodyne CEO Eben Frankenberg added. "By joining Shield, we're creating a company with the size and breadth to deliver even more value to our broad range of defense, government, and commercial customers around the globe." Echodyne will operate as a business unit within Shield's mission systems business, with Frankenberg staying on and reporting up to Steele as part of the company's executive team. There are no planned workforce reductions, and Echodyne employees will not be required to relocate, according to a Shield spokesperson. Longer term, there will likely be greater integration of Echodyne products across Shield's portfolio. presented by A commitment to long-term operational value. While the company is not announcing any "specific aircraft integrations" right now, the spokesperson noted that "Autonomous systems can only act on what they can sense, and Shield expects autonomous aircraft to need more capable onboard sensors in the coming years. Echodyne's radar is built for that use. The acquisition also adds radar engineering, manufacturing capacity and a commercial customer base to Shield's business." The spokesperson added that the Echodyne deal has no impact on the recent decision to work with RTX for a radar on X-Bat, saying that work "is separate from this acquisition." Of the $5.3 billion deal, $4.8 billion will be paid out at closing with another $500 million paid out upon Echodyne meeting spelled out performance targets. Coinciding with the deal, Shield raised $2.5 billion through Series H funding and investments from Blackstone and JPMorgan Chase. The spokesperson also noted that the company "will continue to look at acquisitions as part of its growth strategy."

Shield AI is buying a radar company for $5.3B, and raising $2.5B in new funding for it, the company plans to announce on Thursday, Bloomberg’s Rebecca Torrence repo...

First X-BAT fighter jet prototype unveiled as Shield AI preps Seattle area factory for 2027 launch. by John Cook on Nov 4, 2026 at 8:26 am Defense technology startup Shield AI has completed its first full-scale prototype of the X-BAT autonomous fighter jet as the company prepares its manufacturing and engineering hub south of Seattle. Constructed in 12 months at a facility in Frisco, Texas, the prototype is currently en route to the company's flight-test center at Newton City-County Airport in Kansas. The milestone keeps Shield AI on track for its major manufacturing push in the Seattle area, one that it says could employ 4,000 workers in the region by the early 2030s. In late September, the company announced a 420,000-square-foot facility dubbed "X-Forge 3" at the Des Moines Creek Business Park, which is scheduled to open in spring 2027. The company has already posted dozens of Seattle-area job openings across avionics, mechanical design, software engineering and aircraft manufacturing. The unveiling of the X-BAT prototype keeps the company on schedule for its planned regional buildout in Des Moines, a spokesperson tells GeekWire. "This milestone represents a year of sustained effort and discipline from a team that committed to an ambitious design and build schedule and delivered," Armor Harris, senior vice president of aircraft engineering at Shield AI, said in a blog post. "That is no small feat." San Diego-based Shield AI expects the first X-BAT aircraft to roll off the line in Des Moines in 2028, with full production ramping up to about 150 aircraft per year by the early 2030s, Harris told GeekWire in an interview in September. It's an extremely ambitious timeline, but one the company says is necessary given the changing dynamics of warfare. "The team is laser focused on keeping pace because we know a capability is only useful if it arrives in time to matter," Harris said. "We cannot take decades to develop an aircraft when the need is already here. That urgency has shaped how we approach the engineering work, and how we work with partners in the U.S. government." Unveiled last year, the X-BAT is an AI-piloted strike fighter that takes off and lands vertically, carries up to 2,000-pound class weapons in internal bays, and is designed for a 1,000-nautical-mile combat radius - which, when it takes flight, would top the estimated 590 nautical mile combat radius of the Lockheed Martin F-35A. One of its key tactical advantages is the ability to take off and land without concrete runways - hence the tagline for the X-BAT: "Earth is our Runway." The X-BAT launches from and returns to a mobile, trailer-mounted Launch and Recovery Vehicle, which allows the AI-piloted jet to deploy from cargo ships, naval destroyers or remote areas where it's too costly or dangerous to build traditional runways. "Our adversaries have invested in long range missiles that put our aircraft at risk when they're on the ground. Aircraft are hard to shoot down in the air, but easy to destroy when they're on the ground," Harris notes in the blog post. "X-BAT is the answer to this threat because it forces the adversary to take all those assets that are overhead looking down at our airbases and makes them try to go and find where the X-BATs are hiding." Last month, the U.S. Navy awarded Shield AI a $150 million contract modification through the Pentagon's Defense Exportability Features program, matched dollar-for-dollar by $150 million in private Shield AI funds. Alongside a prior $100 million joint Navy and Defense Innovation Unit award in August, total program backing stands at approximately $400 million. Co-founded by former Navy SEAL Brandon Tseng, Shield AI raised a $2 billion venture capital round at a $12.7 billion valuation earlier this year. With the prototype built, Shield AI's engineering team is focusing on proving out its vertical-takeoff-and-landing mechanics in Kansas ahead of initial flight trials later this year. Harris detailed a multi-phase testing campaign ahead: * Horizontal and vertical engine runs: Running the GE Aerospace F110-GE-129E engine while the aircraft lies horizontal on its mobile launch and recovery trailer, then tilting the vehicle upright to test the engine and systems vertically. * Tethered crane testing: Suspending the jet from a crane purely as a safety mechanism, ensuring that if an engine stalls or an issue occurs, the prototype won't crash. * Untethered flight: Removing the tether to conduct free-flight trials and widen the aircraft's launch-and-recovery envelope. "We've built the first aircraft," Harris wrote. "Now it's time to go prove what it can do." Here's a closer look at the prototype: