Shield AI boosts Series E to $225m to accelerate building world's best AI pilot

Shield AI, a fast-growing defense technology company building AI pilots for aircraft, announced it has raised additional equity capital from the U.S. Innovative Technology Fund (USIT).

This additional raise was done at the company's Series E price and closes out the round at $225 million, with $150 million in equity and $75 million in debt. The initial part of Series E was closed in June, which made the company the fourth venture-backed, multi-billion-dollar defense-technology startup in 20 years.

Brandon Tseng, Co-founder and President, Shield AI: "We fundamentally believe that the greatest victory requires no war, which is why deterrence technology like AI pilots for defense are 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."

Shield AI's Hivemind software 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 defense 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 maneuvers and uses reinforcement learning for discovery, learning, and execution of winning tactics and strategies. On aircraft, Hivemind enables full autonomy and is designed to run fully on the edge, disconnected from the cloud, in high threat, GPS and communication-degraded environments.

Thomas Tull, Chairman, USIT: "Automated defense capabilities will play an increasingly essential role in our defense 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 defense."

www.shield.ai