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

Autonomous aircraft maker Shield AI has raised $1.5 billion in Series G funding at a value of $12.7 billion after financing, the company said. he announced the second. The deal was led by PE firm Advent (which has a budget of $1 billion to invest in security technology, it does) is an investment group of JPMorganChase.

In addition, Shield AI sold $500 million of preferred shares to Blackstone’s fund (and also wrote down a $250 million loan that it will take later). The capital is helping Shield acquire Aechelon Technology, a maker of test aircraft used to train US pilots. The terms of the seizure were not disclosed.

The new round comes after Shield raised $240 million at a price of $5.3 billion in March 2025. This means that its value has increased by 140% in one year. There’s a good reason for this: Shield AI’s Hivemind autonomy software was elected in February as a provider of the US Air Force Collaborative Combat Aircraft drone prototype program.

Interestingly, the Shield program was chosen to work with competitor Anduril on its “Fury” autonomous aircraft. Anduril, of course, has his own software, called Lattice, to command his Fury aircraft. But the Air Force apparently doesn’t want to be locked into being a single supplier for its entire fleet of next-generation warships.

However, Anduril cannot be replaced by sharing some of the loot. It raised $2.5 billion against a $30.5 billion valuation in June and the word on the street is that they are looking to raise up to $8 billion at a cost of $60 billion.

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