Counter-UAS Funding Tracker (36 deals)

Our funding tracker covering the counter-UAS market

Below is the table listing all the deals. You may find our methodology at the end of this page.

And, if you want to gain a deeper understanding of the market and its current dynamics, get our report covering the Counter-UAS Market.

Is Counter-UAS funding really a $1.5 billion market today?

As of today, Counter-UAS funding is a billion-dollar market on paper, but the $1.51 billion headline makes the market look much deeper than it really is.

We tracked 36 private financings from January 2024 through our cutoff, with at least $1.512 billion of identifiable capital. The typical deal looks nothing like that headline, though. The median round is $10.96 million, versus an average of $43.19 million.

A handful of very large raises create most of the gap. Once rounds above $100 million are removed, visible funding falls to roughly $551.5 million. Excluding rounds above $50 million brings it down to about $434 million.

There is serious money in Counter-UAS. It just is not spread across dozens of heavily financed companies. Most startups are raising single-digit or low-double-digit millions, while a very small group has moved into a different financial league.

How many Counter-UAS companies are actually getting funded?

The funded Counter-UAS market currently comes down to 29 companies, even though we found 36 separate financing events.

Twenty-four of those 29 companies appear only once during the period we studied. Three raised twice, while only two appear three times or more. The company-level repeat-fundraising rate is just 17.2%.

That makes companies such as Allen Control Systems unusually important. Allen raised $12 million at Seed, followed by $30 million at Series A and $200 million at Series B. Aurelius Systems also appears three times, while TYTAN Technologies and Nordic Air Defence returned for additional capital.

For most of the market, we still have only one visible financing event. Some of these companies are simply too young to have raised again yet, but it shows how recent much of the Counter-UAS startup wave still is.

Is most Counter-UAS funding going to just a few companies?

Yes. Counter-UAS funding is heavily concentrated today, with three financings alone absorbing 63.5% of all identifiable capital.

CHAOS Industries raised $510 million, Epirus raised $250 million and Allen Control Systems raised $200 million. Together, those three deals account for $960 million.

Concentration remains extreme when we group rounds by company rather than looking at individual deals. CHAOS alone represents 33.7% of capital raised during the period. The five largest companies account for roughly 74.1%, while the top ten reach about 88.5%.

Only five of the 35 deals with usable amounts exceeded $50 million. Those five deals captured 71.3% of all disclosed capital.

Company	Deals	Capital raised during the period
CHAOS Industries	1	$510M
Epirus	1	$250M
Allen Control Systems	3	$242M
Hidden Level	1	$65M
Sensofusion	1	≈$52.5M
TYTAN Technologies	2	≈$52.34M
Aurelius Systems	3	$52.1M
Beijing Lizheng / LZ TECH	2	≥$42.9M + one undisclosed round
Skapion	1	$36M
Frankenburg Technologies	1	≈$35.3M

What does a normal Counter-UAS funding round look like?

A normal Counter-UAS startup should think in terms of roughly $5 million to $20 million, rather than the huge checks that dominate industry headlines.

The median financing in our research is $10.96 million. More revealingly, 21 of the 35 deals with disclosed amounts are below $20 million. Nine are below $5 million.

Recent deals fit that picture well. Mara raised $7 million to move its Spike system toward broader deployment. Armory raised roughly $1.5 million. Molfar Defence raised about $2.3 million. Perseus Defense raised $6 million.

Even among better-funded early companies, low tens of millions remain common. Alpine Eagle raised roughly $11 million, TYTAN raised about $17 million at Seed, and Esh-Tech raised $18 million.

Once a company moves past $50 million, we are dealing with a very different part of the market.

Round size	Deals	Share of disclosed deals	Capital raised
Below $5M	9	25.7%	$17.7M
$5M to below $20M	12	34.3%	$120.9M
$20M to below $50M	9	25.7%	$295.5M
$50M to below $100M	2	5.7%	$117.5M
$100M+	3	8.6%	$960M
All disclosed rounds	35	100%	≥$1.511B

Is Counter-UAS still mostly an early-stage market?

Counter-UAS is currently very early-stage in terms of deal activity, even though later-stage companies absorb most of the money.

Seed accounts for 21 of the 36 financings we tracked. Adding Series A means 73.5% of classifiable deals are early-stage.

Yet Seed and Series A together receive only about 21% of classifiable capital. Series B and later rounds account for the remaining 79%.

The gap has become especially visible lately. Ground A, founded in 2026, raised €9.1 million before its first product entered series production. Mara raised $7 million while moving from field testing toward broader deployment. At the other end, Allen Control Systems raised $200 million after Bullfrog had already reached military customers, while CHAOS and Epirus raised hundreds of millions around production and scaling.

Counter-UAS therefore has two funding markets running at once: a large group of young companies testing new approaches, and a much smaller group receiving the capital needed to build and deliver systems in quantity.

Stage	Deals	Share of deals	Capital	Median round
Seed	21	58.3%	$169.9M	$6.97M
Series A	4	11.1%	$140.6M	$35.3M
Series B	4	11.1%	$297.5M	$38.75M
Series C	3	8.3%	≥$107.9M	≥$53.95M
Series D+	2	5.6%	$760M	$380M
Unknown	2	5.6%	$35.6M	$17.8M
Total	36	100%	≥$1.511B	—

Why does Counter-UAS funding drop so sharply after Seed?

The biggest visible bottleneck in Counter-UAS funding comes right after Seed: we found 21 Seed rounds and only four Series A financings.

The check size also changes abruptly at that point. Median funding rises from about $7 million at Seed to $35.3 million at Series A.

Frankenburg Technologies and TYTAN Technologies both raised roughly $35.3 million at Series A. Aurelius Systems went even higher with its recent $40 million Series A, which the company said would help expand production, vertically integrate critical components and improve manufacturing resilience.

That gives us a good idea of what investors increasingly expect once a Counter-UAS startup moves beyond its first institutional round. A promising prototype can attract Seed money. A $30 million to $40 million Series A increasingly needs a credible route toward manufacturing, customer delivery and operational integration.

The 21-to-four gap is not a cohort survival rate, since many of the Seed companies are too young to have had time to reach Series A. Still, it is a big gap. Getting funded once is much more common than reaching the first genuinely large institutional round.

Why are the biggest Counter-UAS rounds suddenly worth hundreds of millions?

The largest Counter-UAS rounds now look increasingly like industrial financing because companies are using the money to manufacture, integrate and deploy systems at scale.

Allen Control Systems is the clearest recent example. Its $200 million Series B was explicitly announced to scale manufacturing and accelerate deployment of Bullfrog for U.S. and allied militaries.

CHAOS Industries said its $510 million financing would support expanded product development and manufacturing. Epirus tied its $250 million Series D to increasing Leonidas production capacity, strengthening its supply chain and expanding its manufacturing footprint.

We see the same direction below the nine-figure level. Frankenburg's €30 million Series A was raised to build missile manufacturing capacity across Europe. TYTAN followed its €30 million Series A with a new Munich facility combining research, system integration and serial manufacturing. Ground A says its recent €9.1 million pre-seed is already laying the groundwork for industrialisation and modular series production.

This fits the procurement problem governments are trying to solve. The U.S. Department of Defense has explicitly called for Counter-UAS solutions that can be delivered faster and at scale while reducing the huge cost imbalance between cheap attacking drones and expensive defensive interceptors.

The jump in funding tends to arrive when the question changes from “can the technology work?” to “can the company actually build enough of it?”

Which Counter-UAS technologies are getting the most money today?

Counter-UAS sensors currently lead by total capital, kinetic systems lead by number of financings, and integrated systems have the most evenly spread funding.

Sensors collected about $602 million from only five deals. That looks enormous until we separate CHAOS Industries: its $510 million round accounts for 84.7% of all sensor capital. Without CHAOS, the category falls to roughly $92 million.

Electronic defeat has a similar concentration problem. Six deals raised about $359.6 million, but Epirus alone represents nearly 70% of that amount.

Kinetic defeat is where we see the most experimentation. Sixteen deals across 12 companies make it the largest category by activity, but its median round is only $7.4 million. Mara, Perseus Defense, Nordic Air Defence and Shotling all sit in this early wave of new interceptors and hard-kill systems, while Allen's $200 million Series B sits far above the rest.

Integrated Counter-UAS looks more balanced. Sensofusion's roughly $52.5 million round is the largest, yet it accounts for only about 30% of identifiable funding in the category. Skapion raised $36 million, Fortem received a $25 million Series B tranche from Lockheed Martin, and Beijing Lizheng disclosed more than $42.9 million in a later-stage round.

Counter-UAS category	Deals	Companies	Capital	Median round
Counter-UAS Sensors	5	5	$602.0M	$20.0M
Kinetic Defeat Systems	16	12	$375.2M	$7.4M
Electronic Defeat Systems	6	5	$359.6M	$24.5M
Counter-UAS Integration	9	8	≥$174.8M	≈$18.0M

How old are Counter-UAS startups when investors start writing serious checks?

Counter-UAS startups can raise money almost immediately, but the really large rounds usually come several years later.

Across the 34 financings where the founding date was reliable enough to use, the median company age at funding was two years. At Seed, it was just one year.

Some of the newest companies are moving remarkably fast. Ground A was founded in 2026 and closed a €9.1 million pre-seed within months. Perseus Defense was founded in 2025 and raised $6 million that same year. Mara, founded in 2024, recently raised $7 million while already testing its system with military users.

The age profile becomes very different higher up the market. Companies raising more than $50 million have a median age of roughly seven years. Epirus was founded in 2018 before its $250 million Series D. Hidden Level also dates to 2018 and raised $65 million at Series C. Sensofusion was founded in 2016 before its roughly $52.5 million Series B.

Large Counter-UAS checks typically come after years of product development, testing, contracts and integration work. The recent crop of young startups can move quickly, but very few have yet had enough time to reach that point.

Are Counter-UAS investors backing newcomers or doubling down on companies they already know?

Counter-UAS investors are still funding plenty of newcomers, but almost all of the capital goes into follow-on rounds.

We classified 11 of the 36 financings as first financings. They account for nearly a third of all deals but only about $63.5 million of capital.

Twenty-four follow-on financings absorb at least $1.446 billion, or 95.7% of identifiable funding. The median first financing is about $6 million, compared with $30 million for a follow-on.

Recent newcomers show that the door is still open. Ground A, Molfar Defence, Shotling and Mara all entered the market with relatively small initial or early financings. By comparison, the largest checks go to companies that have already spent years raising capital, securing customers and proving their systems.

A new Counter-UAS company can still get funded today. Earning the kind of investor confidence that unlocks tens or hundreds of millions of dollars later is the harder part.

Why does North America get so much more Counter-UAS funding than Europe?

North America currently gets 82.2% of Counter-UAS capital because U.S. companies are raising much larger late-stage rounds, rather than because Europe has stopped producing startups.

North America accounts for 19 deals, or just over half of the total, and roughly $1.243 billion of funding.

Europe has 11 deals across nine companies. That is a substantial share of startup activity, yet those financings total only about $169.5 million.

The difference appears at the top. The United States has produced a $510 million CHAOS round, a $250 million Epirus round and a $200 million Allen round. Europe's largest financing in our period is Sensofusion at roughly $52.5 million.

Recent European activity is getting stronger, though. Frankenburg and TYTAN each raised around $35 million, and Ground A recently secured €9.1 million only months after being founded. Frankenburg and TYTAN are also building manufacturing capacity rather than staying at prototype level.

Europe has a real Counter-UAS startup pipeline today. The bigger gap is access to the very large pools of private capital needed once these companies move into full industrial scale.

Which investors keep coming back to Counter-UAS startups?

No venture fund has established anything close to a dominant position in Counter-UAS funding yet.

A lead investor is publicly identifiable in 30 of the 36 deals we studied. Across those financings, we found 38 different lead investors.

Only three appear more than once: Draper Associates, Khosla Ventures and Craft Ventures.

Draper appears in two Aurelius rounds. Khosla backed both Mara and Skapion. Craft led two earlier Allen Control Systems financings before Smash Capital took the lead on Allen's $200 million Series B.

Even those repeat investors show up only twice each. The market is still being financed by a broad mix of generalist venture funds, defense specialists, industrial investors and newer defense-focused vehicles.

For founders, that makes Counter-UAS quite different from more mature venture categories where a recognizable group of funds repeatedly finances companies from Seed through growth. That institutional pattern has not really formed here yet.

Does corporate strategic money actually matter in Counter-UAS?

Strategic investors show up in only 22.2% of Counter-UAS deals, but their involvement tends to coincide with much larger rounds and clearer paths into existing defense systems.

The median financing with an identifiable strategic investor is $22.5 million. For deals without one, the median is $7.8 million.

The pattern is especially strong in electronic defeat, where four of six financings involve strategic investors. Sensors have two strategic-backed deals out of five. Kinetic defeat has only one out of 16.

The relationships themselves explain a lot. General Dynamics Land Systems participated in Epirus while working with the company on integrating high-power microwave Counter-UAS technology with military vehicles. L3Harris invested in MatrixSpace after the companies had already demonstrated integration between radar and Counter-UAS software. DEUTZ joined TYTAN while working on drive and energy solutions for drone-defense systems.

Lockheed Martin's $25 million investment in Fortem is even more direct. The funding is the first tranche of Fortem's Series B and is meant to accelerate production while expanding deployment inside Lockheed Martin's Sanctum Counter-UAS ecosystem.

Corporate capital looks most useful when a technology is ready to plug into a bigger defense platform, production network or procurement channel.

What's still missing from the Counter-UAS funding market?

The biggest missing piece in Counter-UAS funding today is a deep middle of companies repeatedly progressing from early venture rounds into large-scale financing.

There is no Growth Equity round in our research. Only two financings reach Series D+, and both belong to exceptional companies: CHAOS and Epirus.

Kinetic defeat makes the gap particularly visible. The category contains 12 Seed rounds, three Series A rounds and only one Series B. Investors are willing to fund a wide range of interceptor concepts, but only a handful have reached the point where much larger pools of capital become available.

Company repetition remains limited too. As seen above, 24 of the 29 companies appear only once during the period we studied. Lead investors rarely return, and no single strategic investor has emerged as a recurring consolidator across the market.

That may change quickly. Several 2026 financings are already tied to production facilities, industrialisation and field deployment. For now, Counter-UAS has far more promising entrants than companies that have proved they can move all the way from a first venture round to high-volume production.

What should we actually take away from the Counter-UAS funding data?

Counter-UAS has become a serious venture and industrial funding category, but it is still a fairly small ecosystem underneath the large headline numbers. We found 29 funded companies across the period, and most have raised only once.

Funding depth is concentrated at the top. Three exceptional rounds account for almost two-thirds of the capital, while a typical financing is around $11 million. That median tells us much more about an ordinary Counter-UAS startup than the $43 million average.

The startup pipeline is young. Seed rounds are everywhere, especially in kinetic defeat, while the first major narrowing appears before Series A. Investors seem increasingly willing to write much larger checks once a company can show a credible route from working technology to manufacturing and operational deployment.

The newest financings reinforce that pattern. Ground A is already talking about industrialisation at pre-seed, Aurelius is using Series A capital to expand production and vertical integration, TYTAN is combining fresh funding with serial manufacturing, and Allen has moved into a $200 million manufacturing-and-deployment phase.

The technology mix is more nuanced than the headline category totals suggest. Sensors lead in capital largely because of CHAOS, electronic defeat is heavily shaped by Epirus, kinetic has the broadest startup activity, and integrated Counter-UAS has a more evenly spread group of funded companies.

Geography matters most once companies need serious scale capital. Europe is producing a healthy number of Counter-UAS startups and has recently generated several substantial rounds, but the nine-figure private financings are still overwhelmingly American.

The clearest picture today is a market with plenty of technical experimentation and a growing industrial layer above it. The next test is whether more of those early companies can cross the gap and join the small group now being financed to manufacture and deploy Counter-UAS systems at scale.