Industry & Contracts
Drone industry news from UASFeed — procurement awards, defense primes and startups, funding rounds, and the business of uncrewed systems.
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Industry & Contracts
Archer Aviation to Acquire Boeing's Insitu, Wisk Aero and SkyGrid in All-Stock Deal
Archer Aviation signed an all-stock deal to acquire Boeing's Insitu, Wisk Aero and SkyGrid units, handing Boeing a roughly 19.75% stake as the eVTOL maker absorbs decades of military UAS and autonomy technology.
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Industry & Contracts
Neros Triples to $2.5B Valuation in $250M Series C, Adds Bandit Interceptor to Product Line
Los Angeles drone maker Neros raised a $250 million Series C at a $2.5 billion valuation on August 11, 2026, funding a new Bandit counter-UAS interceptor alongside its Archer AI strike drone as it chases 1 million units/year of production by 2028.
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Industry & Contracts
First Production Laser: AeroVironment's $400M Locust Deal Moves Directed Energy From Prototype to Product Line
Bloomberg reports the Army will buy at least $400M of AeroVironment's Locust counter-drone lasers — the Pentagon's first production contract for a directed-energy system beyond the prototype phase — sending AVAV up ~8-9% and turning the E-HEL program of record from negotiation into recurring revenue.
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Industry & Contracts
Army's Sub-$150K Missile Hunt: NGCM Sources-Sought Targets Cheap Group 2/3 Drone Killers for the Coyote Launcher
The Army wants a Coyote Launcher-compatible interceptor that can kill Group 2/3 drones at 16+ km for under $150,000 a round, with industry responses due August 20.
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Industry & Contracts
Pentagon's Counter-Drone Marketplace Expands as Kaizen's $15M Platform Crosses $21M in Sales
JIATF-401's vetted C-UAS Marketplace, built by startup Kaizen under a $15M contract, has processed $21M in purchases and added the UK and Romania as allied buyers while linking to the Foreign Military Sales Fast Lane.
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Industry & Contracts
19 Drone Makers, One Fort Carson Proving Ground: Inside the Pentagon's $300M Gauntlet II Shootout
Nineteen finalists are trucking 120 attack drones apiece to Fort Carson this August, the live-fire elimination round of a $1.1B Pentagon program racing toward a 200,000-drone fleet by 2027.
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Industry & Contracts
Pentagon Commits Up to $820M to Performance Drone Works to Build Domestic Drone Component Supply Chain
The Department of War's Office of Strategic Capital signed a conditional loan of up to $820 million with Performance Drone Works on July 31, 2026, to mass-produce propulsion, power/control, and vision-system components for Group 1/2 drones industry-wide.
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Industry & Contracts
XTEND and JFB Construction Close In on $1.5B Merger to Form Nasdaq-Listed XTEND AI Robotics
SEC filings show Israeli drone-robotics firm XTEND and Nasdaq-listed JFB Construction advancing toward a $1.5B all-stock reverse merger that would list XTEND AI Robotics as XTND, as XTEND also closes its Atlas acquisition and lands a spot in a $1B Pentagon drone program.
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Industry & Contracts
Farnborough 2026: Ukraine Reveals a Missile-Armed Liutyi, Turning Its Signature Strike Drone Into a Reusable Standoff Shooter
At Farnborough 2026, Ukraine's state defense industry unveiled a Liutyi variant carrying four wing-mounted missiles, each with a roughly 20 kg warhead — reframing a drone known for one-way refinery strikes as a reusable, multi-shot standoff weapon with a decoy mode.
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Industry & Contracts
Saronic and Samsung Heavy Industries Join Forces to Mass-Produce Autonomous Warships
Autonomy startup Saronic and Korean shipbuilding giant Samsung Heavy Industries have partnered to fuse USV autonomy with high-volume yard capacity, feeding Saronic's Port Alpha megashipyard in Texas and its Franklin, Louisiana yard.
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Industry & Contracts
The Anode Bottleneck: Sila's $300M Raise and America's Drone Battery Problem
Sila's $300M round scales a Moses Lake plant from 2 GWh toward 250 GWh of silicon-carbon anode — the component that sets the endurance-versus-payload trade on every small UAS. Federal records show DOE has been funding the same plant since 2019. No drone customers are named.
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Industry & Contracts
Skydio Gets Its Whole Lineup Cleared — Including the First Blue UAS Drone-in-a-Box for DFR
Skydio's X10, Dock for X10 and R10 joined the Blue UAS Cleared List on 23 July 2026, making its entire lineup cleared and the Dock the first Blue UAS-cleared drone-as-first-responder system — unlocking Byrne JAG, COPS and HSGP grant money just as the list itself moves from DIU to DCMA.
