What are the top counter-UAS startups by revenue today?

The ranking of top startups in the counter-UAS market by revenue

Below is a table ranking all the companies in this market by their current revenue scale. You can find our methodology at the end of this page.

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

Why is it so hard to rank counter-UAS startups by revenue?

Counter-UAS startup revenue is surprisingly opaque because some companies disclose real sales while others mainly talk about contracts, backlog, deployments or funding.

That distinction changes the ranking. DroneShield publishes audited annual revenue. Smart Shooter now reports public financial results. MyDefence publishes accounts, although those accounts show gross profit rather than net revenue. Allen Control Systems talks about more than $120 million of U.S. government contracts. Hidden Level has a $100 million procurement agreement. Epirus has large Army awards. Those numbers all tell us something useful, but they are not interchangeable.

The ownership map is changing quickly too. D-Fend Solutions looked like one of the largest independent counter-drone specialists until Motorola Solutions completed its $1.5 billion acquisition. Sentrycs is now part of Ondas. Dedrone belongs to Axon. MARSS's defense business belongs to EOS.

So we need two filters before ranking anyone. First, is the number actually revenue? Second, is the company still an independent startup or scale-up today?

Once we apply those filters, the market becomes much easier to read.

What should count as a counter-UAS startup?

For this ranking, a counter-UAS startup is an independent technology company or specialist scale-up where detecting, tracking or defeating drones represents a meaningful part of the business.

That keeps Boeing, RTX, Lockheed Martin, Rheinmetall, Thales and other giant defense companies out of the main ranking. All of them sell counter-drone technology, but comparing their total corporate revenue against a company like DroneShield would tell us more about the size of defense conglomerates than about counter-UAS startups.

We use “startup” fairly broadly because several of the most useful comparisons have already grown beyond the classic venture-stage definition. DroneShield is publicly listed. Smart Shooter is public. Some specialists have operated for years and now look more like small defense companies.

Anduril sits right on the boundary. It is still a venture-backed private defense-tech company, and counter-UAS is clearly part of its product universe, but the company now sells far more than counter-drone systems.

That is why we include Anduril while keeping its $2.2 billion figure clearly labeled as company-wide revenue.

Is Anduril the biggest counter-UAS startup today?

Yes. Anduril is easily the largest startup with a meaningful counter-UAS business, with $2.2 billion of company-wide revenue in 2025.

Anduril said its revenue more than doubled to $2.2 billion before its latest financing round. Nothing else in the independent counter-UAS startup universe comes close on total company sales.

The catch is what that $2.2 billion contains. Anduril sells autonomous aircraft, underwater vehicles, surveillance systems, missiles, software and other defense products alongside its counter-UAS capabilities. We have not found a reliable disclosure separating counter-drone sales from the rest.

That makes Anduril number one if the question is which counter-UAS startup has the most total revenue. Calling it a $2.2 billion counter-UAS business would still be misleading.

The comparison with DroneShield makes the point. DroneShield is much smaller overall, but nearly all of the business is directly tied to counter-drone products.

How big is DroneShield now?

DroneShield has become the largest counter-UAS specialist with clean, recent revenue evidence, reaching A$216.5 million in 2025.

The growth rate is even more striking than the absolute number. DroneShield generated A$57.5 million a year earlier, which means revenue jumped 276% in one year.

The latest half-year report shows that growth continuing. Revenue reached A$125.8 million in the first six months of this year, 74% above the comparable period.

That makes DroneShield unusual in this market. We are looking at recognized sales from a specialist counter-drone company, rather than a contract ceiling, order announcement or estimated run-rate.

The revenue mix is starting to change too. DroneShield made A$11.6 million from subscriptions in 2025, up from A$2.8 million the year before. Hardware still accounts for most sales, but the installed base is beginning to produce more recurring software revenue.

For anyone asking which dedicated counter-UAS company has already built a genuinely large commercial business, DroneShield is currently the clearest answer.

Is D-Fend still one of the biggest counter-UAS startups?

D-Fend became one of the largest counter-UAS specialists before Motorola Solutions bought the company, so it now belongs in the benchmark group rather than the independent startup ranking.

The numbers are impressive. When Motorola announced the $1.5 billion acquisition, it said D-Fend had grown revenue by more than 50% annually over the previous three years and expected roughly $185 million of full-year revenue this year.

That would have put D-Fend very close to the top of the independent specialist market.

Its commercial success also helps explain why the acquisition price was so large. D-Fend's EnforceAir system uses RF cyber takeover to identify unauthorized drones and take control of them without relying entirely on conventional jamming or kinetic interception. Motorola was buying an established product with thousands of deployments across more than 30 countries, rather than an early-stage technology bet.

Motorola has now completed the transaction. D-Fend remains highly relevant when we want to understand how large a successful counter-UAS startup can become, but calling it an independent startup today would already be outdated.

Who comes after DroneShield among independent counter-UAS specialists?

Smart Shooter and Sensofusion appear to form the next credible revenue tier, with both businesses around the mid-to-high $30 million range.

Smart Shooter reported $36.8 million of revenue for 2025, up from $24.5 million the year before and $12.3 million in 2023. Revenue therefore roughly tripled in two years.

Sensofusion's latest available group figure is €35.1 million. Once converted into dollars, the two companies are close enough that minor exchange-rate movements can change which one appears larger.

Their products are very different. Sensofusion's AIRFENCE platform focuses on detecting, tracking and electronically countering drones. Smart Shooter builds fire-control technology that helps soldiers and remote weapon stations hit moving aerial targets.

So the revenue comparison is more useful than a simple product comparison. Two very different counter-drone approaches have already produced businesses worth several tens of millions of dollars a year.

The bigger gap is above them: DroneShield is several times larger.

Is Smart Shooter still growing quickly?

Yes. Smart Shooter grew revenue by about 50% in 2025, taking annual sales to $36.8 million.

The multi-year progression is stronger than a single growth rate suggests. Smart Shooter generated around $12.3 million in 2023, $24.5 million in 2024 and $36.8 million in 2025.

The business roughly doubled and then added another 50%.

Part of that growth came from large U.S. military orders. The company has supplied more than 1,000 soldier-carried systems under major U.S. Army and Marine Corps programs, and its SMASH family is increasingly pitched specifically around small-drone threats.

Smart Shooter also gives us one of the clearest examples of kinetic counter-UAS becoming a real business category. Electronic warfare gets much of the attention in counter-drone discussions, but militaries still need inexpensive ways to physically destroy drones when jamming or cyber takeover will not work.

The latest numbers suggest that demand is already large enough to support a meaningful standalone company.

How big is MyDefence?

MyDefence is clearly one of the biggest private counter-UAS specialists in Europe, although its public accounts do not tell us exactly how much revenue the company makes.

The Danish company reported DKK252 million of gross profit in 2025 and DKK125.4 million of net profit. Gross profit had risen from DKK214.6 million a year earlier.

Those figures show a substantial and highly profitable business, but Danish reporting rules allow some companies to omit net sales. MyDefence does that, which means gross profit cannot safely be converted into revenue.

Here, leaving the revenue line blank is better than inventing precision. MyDefence could plausibly generate more revenue than Smart Shooter or Sensofusion, but the accounts do not give us enough information to prove it.

What we can say with confidence is that MyDefence belongs near the top of the European specialist group. A counter-drone company producing more than DKK125 million of annual net profit has moved far beyond the usual early-stage startup economics.

Is Fortem Technologies still a top counter-UAS startup?

Fortem Technologies probably remains one of the larger counter-UAS specialists, but its public revenue evidence is too old to place it confidently near the top today.

The best historical revenue estimate we found was roughly $30 million for 2023. That would put Fortem in the same broad range as Smart Shooter and Sensofusion.

The problem is freshness. Counter-UAS procurement has changed dramatically since then, and Fortem has continued winning military work for its DroneHunter interceptor and radar technology. A three-year-old estimate could now be much too low, or it could overstate the current business if programs shifted.

We would rather keep that uncertainty visible than carry a stale figure forward as if nothing had changed.

Fortem remains commercially important. Its DroneHunter architecture represents a fairly unusual approach: one drone physically intercepts another rather than relying purely on RF defeat or gunfire.

For the revenue ranking, though, Fortem sits behind companies with fresh financial disclosures until a stronger current number appears.

How much revenue does Advanced Protection Systems make?

Advanced Protection Systems generated PLN89 million of revenue in 2025, making the Polish company one of Europe's more substantial independent counter-UAS specialists.

That works out to roughly the low-$20 million range in U.S. dollars, depending on the exchange rate used.

The growth was fast. Polish financial reporting covered by Business Insider showed revenue increasing about 90% year over year, while net profit more than doubled.

APS develops FIELDctrl radar and SKYctrl counter-drone systems, so the company sits close to the core definition of this market rather than operating a huge unrelated portfolio.

Below DroneShield and the roughly $35–40 million tier, there is a group of European businesses already making tens of millions of dollars but receiving far less international attention than heavily funded U.S. defense-tech startups.

APS is one of the clearest examples.

Does Allen Control Systems already make more than $100 million a year?

No public evidence shows Allen Control Systems making more than $100 million of annual revenue; the figure above $120 million refers to government contracts.

ACS is nevertheless one of the fastest-moving companies in counter-UAS.

Axios reported that the Bullfrog maker has more than $120 million of U.S. government contracts. The company also raised $200 million at a $2.2 billion valuation and is now expanding manufacturing with a 191,000-square-foot facility in Austin.

ACS expects to deploy 80 Bullfrog turrets this year. That is much more useful commercially than another prototype demonstration because it means production volume is becoming a real constraint.

Bullfrog uses computer vision and autonomous control to aim conventional weapons at drones. The basic economic pitch is easy to understand: militaries want a cheaper way to shoot down inexpensive drones without burning through costly missiles.

ACS could move into the top specialist revenue tier quickly if those contracts turn into delivered systems. For now, we rank the company below businesses that have actually disclosed annual sales.

Is Hidden Level already a $100 million counter-UAS company?

Hidden Level has a $100 million counter-UAS procurement agreement, but the company has not disclosed $100 million of annual revenue.

The difference is easy to miss because the headline number is so large.

Hidden Level received a $100 million Other Transaction Authority agreement to scale its passive sensing technology for counter-UAS missions. That gives defense customers a substantial vehicle through which they can buy systems and services.

It does not mean $100 million has already appeared on Hidden Level's income statement.

The company is still worth watching closely because its business model differs from most hardware-heavy counter-drone vendors. Hidden Level builds passive RF sensing networks and can sell continuing monitoring and data services alongside the physical infrastructure.

That gives it a plausible path toward more recurring revenue than companies that depend mostly on one-time hardware purchases.

Today, however, the clean description is a counter-UAS company with a nine-figure procurement vehicle, rather than a nine-figure revenue business.

How much revenue does Epirus make?

Epirus has not publicly disclosed current annual revenue, so the company's $43.5 million Army award should stay classified as a contract rather than sales.

The award covers Generation II versions of the Leonidas high-power microwave system, along with support equipment, testing and related work.

Epirus is already beyond the science-project stage. Earlier Leonidas systems have been delivered to the Army, the company has demonstrated the technology against large drone swarms, and it raised $250 million to expand production capacity.

The business case is what makes Epirus particularly interesting. High-power microwave systems can potentially attack many drones at once, which is attractive against swarms where firing an expensive interceptor at every target becomes economically painful.

We still do not know how quickly that technical promise will translate into recurring production revenue.

For the ranking, Epirus therefore sits among the commercially advanced challengers rather than alongside companies with $30 million or $200 million of recognized annual sales.

Which counter-UAS startups have real revenue and which mostly have contracts?

DroneShield, Smart Shooter, Sensofusion and Advanced Protection Systems give us usable annual sales figures, while several of the hottest U.S. startups are still easier to measure through contracts than through revenue.

This table shows why headline numbers need to be handled carefully.

Company	Best public figure	What it actually measures	Can we treat it as annual revenue?
Anduril	$2.2B	2025 company revenue	Yes, but company-wide
DroneShield	A$216.5M	2025 revenue	Yes
Smart Shooter	$36.8M	2025 revenue	Yes
Sensofusion	€35.1M	Group revenue	Yes
Advanced Protection Systems	PLN89M	2025 revenue	Yes
MyDefence	DKK252M	Gross profit	No
Allen Control Systems	>$120M	Government contracts	No
Hidden Level	$100M	OTA procurement agreement	No
Epirus	$43.5M	Army contract	No
D-Fend	~$185M expected	Full-year revenue guidance before acquisition	Yes, but no longer independent

A procurement headline can be nine figures even when recognized startup revenue is not. Only a small number of independent specialists have publicly demonstrated nine-figure annual sales.

That gap is likely to narrow as production programs ramp.

Which counter-UAS startups are growing fastest right now?

DroneShield has the strongest documented revenue growth at meaningful scale, while ACS, Hidden Level and Epirus are showing very fast contract growth that has not yet produced equally transparent revenue disclosures.

DroneShield moved from A$57.5 million to A$216.5 million in one year. Its latest first-half revenue then increased another 74% year over year.

Smart Shooter has followed a steadier but still impressive path, rising from $12.3 million in 2023 to $36.8 million in 2025.

Advanced Protection Systems nearly doubled 2025 revenue. Before being acquired, D-Fend had also been growing annual sales by more than 50% for three consecutive years.

ACS belongs in a slightly different bucket. More than $120 million of contracts and a major manufacturing expansion tell us the company is scaling quickly, but the revenue curve is still private.

For now, the line is simple: some companies already show the acceleration in financial statements; others show it mainly in their contract books.

Are European counter-UAS startups catching up with U.S. companies?

Europe has built a much deeper counter-UAS startup base than the funding headlines suggest, although the largest broad defense-tech startup remains American.

DroneShield is Australian, but Europe now contributes several of the strongest specialists below it. Sensofusion comes from Finland, MyDefence from Denmark and Advanced Protection Systems from Poland. Germany also has Aaronia, while larger European defense companies increasingly build or acquire specialist counter-drone capabilities.

The U.S. ecosystem still has a clear advantage in venture capital and very large early procurement programs. Anduril has reached $2.2 billion in company revenue. ACS raised $200 million. Epirus raised $250 million. Hidden Level secured a $100 million procurement vehicle.

Israel remains unusually strong in specialist technology. D-Fend, Smart Shooter and Sentrycs all emerged from the Israeli defense-tech ecosystem, with D-Fend and Sentrycs already attracting strategic buyers.

The market has no single geographic center. U.S. startups currently lead in financing, Europe has quietly built several profitable specialists, and Israel keeps producing valuable counter-drone technologies that larger companies want to acquire.

Why are so many successful counter-UAS startups getting acquired?

Large defense and public-safety companies are buying counter-UAS startups because building every layer of a modern counter-drone system internally would take too long.

The recent deals make the pattern obvious.

Motorola bought D-Fend for $1.5 billion to add RF cyber takeover technology. Ondas acquired Sentrycs for roughly $225 million to add Cyber-over-RF detection and mitigation. Axon bought Dedrone to bring airspace awareness into its public-safety ecosystem. EOS acquired MARSS's defense business to combine its effectors with MARSS's command-and-control software.

These buyers are acquiring different pieces of the same problem.

A useful counter-drone system may need radar or passive RF detection, identification, command software, electronic warfare, kinetic interceptors and increasingly directed-energy weapons. Few companies dominate all of those layers.

That creates a natural acquisition market. A specialist can spend years becoming exceptionally good at one layer, then plug into a much larger defense or security platform.

Acquired counter-UAS company	Buyer	Main capability added
D-Fend Solutions	Motorola Solutions	RF cyber takeover
Sentrycs	Ondas	Cyber-over-RF detection and mitigation
Dedrone	Axon	Airspace detection and awareness
MARSS defense business	EOS	AI-enabled command and control
Black Sage	BlueHalo	Integrated C-UAS and command systems
Liteye	BlueHalo / later larger consolidated perimeter	Integrated counter-UAS

Is counter-UAS becoming a recurring-revenue business?

Counter-UAS is still mostly a hardware and defense-procurement business, but software and recurring services are starting to become meaningful.

DroneShield gives us one of the best public examples. Subscription revenue rose from A$2.8 million in 2024 to A$11.6 million in 2025.

That is still small beside A$196.3 million of hardware and shipping revenue, yet the direction is clear. Once customers deploy sensors and command systems, companies can sell software updates, support, monitoring and additional capabilities into the installed base.

Hidden Level has a similar opportunity because passive sensing networks can generate ongoing monitoring and data services.

Cyber-based counter-drone systems such as D-Fend and Sentrycs also lend themselves naturally to software upgrades as drone protocols change.

Hardware procurement will continue driving most revenue for many years. But the companies that build a large installed base now may end up with much better economics later than the current financial statements suggest.

Which counter-UAS technologies are actually making money?

Electronic warfare and integrated counter-drone hardware currently have the clearest revenue track records, while kinetic and directed-energy companies are now starting to turn large military programs into real commercial scale.

DroneShield shows that RF detection and electronic defeat can support a business above A$200 million in annual revenue.

Sensofusion and MyDefence have also built meaningful businesses around sensing and electronic countermeasures. D-Fend reached substantial scale with RF cyber takeover before being acquired.

Smart Shooter shows that kinetic defeat is commercially viable too. Its fire-control systems helped push revenue to $36.8 million.

High-power microwave companies such as Epirus are earlier in the revenue curve. The contracts are real, but production is not yet visible on anything close to DroneShield's scale.

ACS may change that picture quickly. If autonomous gun systems can move into sustained volume production, kinetic defeat could become one of the largest startup categories in the market.

There is no evidence today that one technical approach has already won. The revenue is spreading across several layers of the kill chain.

Is counter-UAS turning into a winner-take-all market?

No. Counter-UAS looks increasingly like a layered air-defense market where several types of company can build large businesses at the same time.

Different drones create different problems.

A commercial quadcopter controlled over a known radio link may be vulnerable to electronic warfare or cyber takeover. A fiber-controlled drone can remove that easy RF target. Autonomous systems create another challenge. Large swarms put pressure on ammunition economics. Fast or larger drones may require yet another class of interceptor.

That is why we keep seeing very different companies growing together rather than one architecture crushing the others.

Hidden Level sells sensing. DroneShield combines detection and electronic defeat. D-Fend specialized in cyber takeover. Smart Shooter improves kinetic engagement. Fortem sends intercepting drones after hostile drones. Epirus attacks electronics with high-power microwaves. ACS automates conventional guns.

Large integrators can then combine several of those pieces.

The market therefore has room for specialists, especially when their technology fits easily into a broader defense stack.

Which counter-UAS startups could jump up the ranking next?

Allen Control Systems, Hidden Level and Epirus have the clearest paths to a much higher revenue position if their current programs turn into sustained deliveries.

ACS is the most obvious candidate. The company already has more than $120 million in government contracts, plans to deploy 80 Bullfrog systems this year and is expanding manufacturing aggressively.

Hidden Level has a $100 million procurement vehicle and a business model that can combine sensors with continuing monitoring services.

Epirus has moved Leonidas into follow-on Army procurement and is investing heavily in production.

Fortem is harder to judge because the last usable revenue estimate is old, but continued military activity means it could also look very different when a fresh number finally appears.

The next ranking is increasingly going to be about production. Counter-UAS startups have spent years proving that their systems can detect or defeat drones; now they have to manufacture hundreds or thousands of units reliably and deliver them on military timelines.

How many independent counter-UAS startups actually make more than $100 million a year?

Only a tiny number of independent counter-UAS startups can currently prove annual company revenue above $100 million.

Anduril is comfortably above the threshold at $2.2 billion, although most of that revenue comes from a broader defense portfolio.

DroneShield is also clearly above it with A$216.5 million of 2025 revenue.

D-Fend would belong in this group based on its revenue trajectory and roughly $185 million current-year expectation, but Motorola has already acquired the company.

MyDefence may also have sales above $100 million when translated into U.S. dollars; its DKK252 million gross profit certainly suggests a sizeable revenue base. The company does not disclose the top line, so we cannot put it over the threshold with confidence.

Below those names, the disclosed annual figures fall quickly toward $20–40 million.

That may be the single most useful fact in the whole ranking. Counter-UAS attracts enormous attention and large funding rounds, yet proven nine-figure startup revenue is still rare.

What are the top counter-UAS startups by revenue today?

Anduril is the largest startup with a serious counter-UAS business, while DroneShield is the largest transparent counter-UAS specialist; after them, the independent market drops sharply into the tens of millions of dollars in annual revenue.

Our ranking looks like this when we prioritize recognized revenue and keep weaker commercial metrics visibly separate.

Rank	Company	Best current revenue evidence	How we read it
1	Anduril	$2.2B 2025 revenue	Largest startup overall; counter-UAS is only part of the business
2	DroneShield	A$216.5M 2025 revenue	Clearest large counter-UAS pure play
3	Smart Shooter	$36.8M 2025 revenue	Strong fresh public revenue evidence
4	Sensofusion	€35.1M latest group revenue	Very similar scale to Smart Shooter after FX
5	Fortem Technologies	~$30M historical estimate	Likely sizeable, but current ranking confidence is low
6	Advanced Protection Systems	PLN89M 2025 revenue	Roughly low-$20M range in USD
Unranked	MyDefence	DKK252M gross profit	Likely large, but revenue is undisclosed
Unranked	Allen Control Systems	>$120M contracts	Huge commercial momentum, but contracts are not revenue
Unranked	Hidden Level	$100M OTA	Procurement capacity rather than annual sales
Unranked	Epirus	$43.5M Army contract	Material production award rather than annual revenue

D-Fend deserves a separate mention because its expected revenue would put it near the top of this table, but Motorola has completed the acquisition and the company is no longer independent.

The ranking says something broader about counter-UAS today. Funding and procurement have moved far ahead of recognized startup revenue. There are already plenty of companies with large contracts, sophisticated technology and billion-dollar valuations, but only a handful can show annual sales above roughly $30–40 million.

DroneShield is currently the clearest proof that a focused counter-UAS vendor can grow into a genuinely large standalone business. Anduril proves that counter-drone technology can also sit inside a much broader defense-tech platform worth billions in annual revenue.

The next phase should be easier to measure. ACS is building manufacturing capacity, Hidden Level has a large purchasing vehicle, Epirus is moving deeper into production and several European specialists are already profitable. As these programs convert from awards into deliveries, today's gap between contract headlines and actual revenue should start closing.