Shield AI, a San Diego, CA-based artificial intelligence company with the mission to protect service members and civilians with intelligent systems, raised an additional $60 million in Series E funding.
The investment was from a single investor, Hollywood producer Thomas Tull, and will be used to continue developing Shield AI technology.
Shield AI announced the previous $165 million Series E tranche in June, which gave the startup a valuation of $2.3 billion. This extension came in at the same valuation.
“Military and government spending is countercyclical,” said Ryan Tseng CEO of Shield AI in an interview. “When you talk to a consumer or enterprise business, spending goes down in a recession. But the government is a Steady Eddie. Modernizing the military requires a path and a plan and so it will continue to execute on that.”
Shield AI is part of the U.S. Department of Defense Program of Record and it’s working on a number of other projects, including VTOL autonomous plane software and hardware, and “swarming” capabilities to jam signals or to help their customers communicate when their signals are being jammed.
Company: Shield AI, Inc.
Raised: $60.0M
Round: Series E Additional
Funding Month: December 2022
Lead Investors: Thomas Tull
Additional Investors:
Company Website: https://shield.ai/
Software Category: Defense Software
About the Company: Founded in 2015 by Brandon Tseng, his brother Ryan Tseng, and Andrew Reiter, Shield AI is an American aerospace and defense technology company that develops artificial intelligence-powered drones, aircraft, and software to assist defense operations. Shield AI employs machine learning and artificial intelligence to develop defense software and tools. It developed Nova an autonomous quadcopter drone, and Hivemind, its autonomy, and artificial intelligence stack. This software helps drones and aircraft maneuver autonomously in GPS- and communication-degraded environments. It also develops AI-powered vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) aircraft called V-BAT through its acquisition of Martin UAV. Its clients include the militaries of the United States and Brazil.
Source: https://techcrunch.com/2022/12/13/shield-ai-raises-another-60m-at-a-2-3b-valuation-for-its-military-autonomous-flying-tech/