- The company—founded in 2015—develops platforms and planes for autonomous flying systems, for the U.S. military and its allies
- It has raised $60 million in the latest funding, which will be infused into further developing its technology
An emerging defence technology company Shield AI recently announced that it secured additional equity capital of $60 million at its Series E price, whose initial part was closed in June this year. The capital was infused by the U.S. Innovative Technology Fund (USIT). Shield AI mentioned that the additional raise closed out the round at $225M, with $150M in equity and $75M in debt. The defence company will bolster its technology development with the infused capital.
It is noteworthy that the initial part of Series E made the company the fourth venture-backed, multi-billion-dollar defence-technology startup in two decades.
Former Navy SEAL Brandon Tseng, who’s also the co-founder and president of Shield AI, stated: “We fundamentally believe that the greatest victory requires no war, which is why deterrence technology like AI pilots for defence is so crucial. We are racing to put up swarms of highly intelligent aircraft to deter the next conflict and this new capital accelerates our efforts.”
The company claims that its Hivemind software is the first and only autonomous AI pilot deployed since 2018. Notably, it is an AI pilot for military and commercial aircraft that enables intelligent teams of aircraft to perform missions ranging from room clearance to penetrating air defence systems and dogfighting F-16s.
“Hivemind employs state-of-the-art algorithms for planning, mapping, and state-estimation to enable aircraft to execute dynamic flight manoeuvres and uses reinforcement learning for discovery, learning, and execution of winning tactics and strategies,” noted the official communication. As per the company, Hivemind enables full autonomy on aircraft and is designed to run fully on the edge, disconnected from the cloud, in high-threat, GPS and communication-degraded environments.
Chairman of USIT, Thomas Tull remarked, “Automated defence capabilities will play an increasingly essential role in our defence programs and are critical to our ability to remain competitive. Shield AI is a leader in this space, developing some of the most advanced and cutting-edge technology for AI piloting. We are proud to be able to support Shield AI and the work they are doing in defence.”
San Diego-based Shield AI is a fast-growing defence technology company, which is building AI pilots for aircraft. The 2015-found company’s mission is to protect service members and civilians with intelligent systems. It had offices in the US and UAE.
