American defense and aerospace startup Shield AI, which creates AI pilots for aircraft and military UAVs, announced the completion of a $240 million funding round, which raised its valuation to $5.3 billion. What will the funds be spent on?
American defense and aerospace startup Shield AI, which creates AI pilots for aircraft and military UAVs, announced the completion of a $240 million funding round, which raised its valuation to $5.3 billion. What will the funds be spent on?
The round was led by strategic investors L3Harris and Hanwha Aerospace, as well as existing investors including Andreessen Horowitz, US Innovative Technology and Washington Harbour, the press release notes.
These funds will enable Shield AI to expand the deployment of Hivemind Enterprise among OEMs, governments, and companies to empower the larger robotics and drone industry base to create autonomous products.
«Developing autonomy is a complex and expensive process. Hivemind Enterprise solves this widely recognized problem and enables rapid and efficient deployment of sustainable, high-performance autonomy for intelligent machines across industries», — said Nathan Michael, Chief Technology Officer at Shield AI.
Hivemind Enterprise is a software suite for developers and organizations that build, test, evaluate, and deploy autonomy for intelligent machines. It accelerates the development of autonomous systems, providing a multi-year head start through platform products, AI-powered toolkits, and the use of proven Shield AI autonomy technologies that enable unmanned systems to operate in GPS- and communication-free environments.
«The same tools included in Hivemind Enterprise have already allowed Shield AI to autonomously fly F-16, MQ-20, MQM-178 aircraft, operate V-BAT in conditions of GPS and communication loss, and use quadcopters to explore buildings and tunnels for the US and Israeli armed forces», — said Brandon Tseng, President and Co-Founder of Shield AI.
As a reminder, Shield AI previously decided to establish a presence in Ukraine and opened an office in Kyiv with a team of engineers, mission operations staff, and technical specialists. Shield AI has already begun working with Ukrainian Armed Forces drone operators and conducting training that will prepare them for the deployment of V-BAT on the front lines.
