Shield AI, a fast-growing defense technology company that builds AI pilots for aircraft, announced today that it has raised additional equity from the U.S. Innovative Technology Fund (USIT).
This additional raise came at the company’s Series E price and closes the round at $225 million, with $150 million in equity and $75 million in debt. The first part of Series E closed in June, making the company the fourth multi-billion dollar venture-backed defense technology startup in 20 years.
“Shield AI is a leader in this space, developing some of the most advanced and cutting-edge technologies for AI pilots.”
“We fundamentally believe that the greatest victory does not require war, which is why deterrence technology such as AI pilots are so critical to defense. We race to field swarms of highly intelligent aircraft to deter the next conflict, and this new asset accelerates our efforts. said Brandon Tseng, co-founder, president and former Navy SEAL of Shield AI.
Shield AI’s Hivemind software is an AI military and commercial aircraft pilot that enables intelligent aircraft teams to perform missions ranging from space clearance to penetrating air defense systems and dogfighting with F-16s. Hivemind uses state-of-the-art planning, mapping, and state estimation algorithms to enable aircraft to perform dynamic flight maneuvers, and leverages reinforcement learning to discover, learn, and execute winning tactics and strategies. On airplanes, Hivemind enables full autonomy and is designed to run fully at the edge, disconnected from the cloud, in high-threat, GPS, and communications-compromised environments.
“Defense automated capabilities will play an increasingly important role in our defense programs and are critical to our ability to remain competitive,” said Thomas Tull, chairman of USIT. “Shield AI is a leader in this space, developing some of the most advanced and cutting-edge technologies for AI pilots. We are proud to support Shield AI and their defense work.”
