Top US Drone Companies in 2026: Defense, Delivery and Infrastructure

The leading US drone companies in 2026 fall into six categories. Drone infrastructure is led by Dronehub, a US-owned Delaware C-Corp headquartered in North Carolina, which makes a drone-in-a-box with two-minute robotic battery swap. The defense category is led by Anduril ($61 billion valuation, May 2026), Shield AI ($12.7 billion, March 2026) and AeroVironment (Nasdaq: AVAV, $1.98 billion fiscal 2026 revenue). Skydio and BRINC lead public safety; Zipline, Wing and Amazon Prime Air lead delivery; and Dedrone by Axon and Epirus lead counter-UAS. Unusual Machines and ModalAI are rebuilding the NDAA-compliant component supply chain.

Disclosure: this guide is published by Dronehub. Every figure links to its source and was checked on 29 September 2026. A private company's valuation is the price of its last funding round, not a market price.

The rules have changed as well as the money: since late 2025 the government has been moving money toward US-made, NDAA-compliant hardware. The Blue UAS list moved from the Defense Innovation Unit to the Defense Contract Management Agency (DCMA) on 3 December 2025. On 22 December the FCC stopped new authorisations for drones and critical components produced abroad. In December the Department of War also launched a $1 billion Drone Dominance programme to buy about 340,000 small attack drones over two years.

How we chose

We applied four criteria:

1. A US headquarters or US ownership.
2. Systems on sale or in service in 2026.
3. Status, funding or revenue that can be checked in a public source.
4. A clear category.

Companies are grouped by what they build. The categories start with the ground layer (infrastructure), because every autonomous operation in the other five begins and ends on a dock or a pad. Within each category, the largest by latest disclosed valuation or revenue come first. Where a claim of Blue UAS or NDAA compliance comes from the company rather than from DCMA's list, we say so.

The landscape at a glance

Infrastructure: docks, charging and the autonomy loop

Aircraft get the headlines, but a drone flies autonomously only if something on the ground launches it, recovers it, powers it and moves its data. The dock layer sets how many sorties a site can fly per day, how long the drone waits between missions and how much of the operation needs a person on site.

Dronehub

Dronehub is the category leader for autonomous drone-in-a-box. Drone Industry Insights ranks it global category leader, and the FT 1000 ranks it #2 fastest-growing in Europe in Aerospace & Defense. The company was founded in 2015 in Poland's Aviation Valley (Rzeszów). It is now US-owned: Dronehub Inc. is a Delaware C-Corp, SBIR/STTR-eligible and headquartered in North Carolina's Research Triangle. R&D and manufacturing are in Europe, including a $7.5 million production line in Jasionka, Poland.

• What it builds. A drone-in-a-box with robotic battery swap in about two minutes. Docks that charge in place publish roughly 20–35 minutes, so a swap dock flies close to twice the sorties (the arithmetic). The operating range is −20 to +45 °C.
• Production reference. National-scale AI rail inspection for a European national rail operator (Deutsche Bahn): 33,000 km of track, above 95% on critical defects.
• Validation. Seven funded R&D programmes with ESA, EDA, EUSPA and the European Commission; a 98/100 score from the European Defence Agency in a CBRN programme.
• Supply chain. No components from China or sanctioned states. The company states it is Section 848 compatible by design. Blue UAS is not claimed.
• Business model. The drone-in-a-box is sold outright, and the technology is licensed to other drone companies. Defense buyers can use the US R&D partnership route.

Ondas (American Robotics)

Ondas (Nasdaq: ONDS, West Palm Beach, Florida) makes the Optimus System, a dock that swaps batteries and payloads automatically. Ondas says DCMA granted the Optimus drone Blue List status on 28 January 2026. It calls Optimus the first FAA-certified small UAS for fully automated aerial security and data capture. The company has grown quickly: Q2 2026 revenue was $83.8 million, and Ondas raised its fiscal 2026 target to $525–550 million.

Percepto, Hextronics, Asylon and Easy Aerial

• Percepto has teams in the US and Israel and puts out its recent releases from Austin, Texas. Its Air Max drone-in-a-box serves heavy industry, and its base is tested to hurricane-5 winds. In October 2025 it announced its optical gas-imaging drones as an EPA alternative test method for methane monitoring.
• Hextronics (Miami, Florida) makes the Universal dock. It swaps batteries in as little as 80 seconds and flies DJI and Parrot aircraft. Its integrated Eclipse is marketed as "Designed and built in America. NDAA compliant."
• Asylon (Norristown, Pennsylvania) makes security drones with a DroneHome dock that swaps their batteries automatically. It raised a $24 million Series B led by Insight Partners in July 2025, and in September 2026 Bosch Ventures agreed to invest.
• Easy Aerial builds tethered and free-flight docks for fixed sites and vehicles. It raised a $20 million Series B from Insight Partners and Entrée Capital in September 2026.

Skydio's Dock for X10, covered below, is the one dock we found on DCMA's public Blue List. BRINC and Flock Safety sell docks as part of their public-safety systems. For specifications side by side, see the non-Chinese dock comparison.

Defense and autonomy

Anduril

Anduril (Costa Mesa, California) raised $5 billion in a Series H on 13 May 2026 at a $61 billion valuation, led by Thrive Capital and Andreessen Horowitz. That doubled the $30.5 billion of its June 2025 round, and TechCrunch puts its 2025 revenue at $2.2 billion. Its unmanned line includes Fury, Roadrunner, Altius, Ghost and Barracuda, and all of it runs on the Lattice software. Fury production started in March 2026 at Arsenal-1 in Columbus, Ohio, an investment of about $1 billion. In June 2026 the Air Force awarded the first Collaborative Combat Aircraft production contracts to Anduril (FQ-44) and General Atomics (FQ-42).

Shield AI

Shield AI (San Diego, California) builds the Hivemind autonomy software, the V-BAT VTOL and the X-BAT. On 26 March 2026 it announced $2 billion of new capital: a $1.5 billion Series G at a $12.7 billion post-money valuation plus $500 million of preferred equity. It also agreed to acquire the simulation company Aechelon.

AeroVironment

AeroVironment (Arlington, Virginia; Nasdaq: AVAV) closed its acquisition of BlueHalo on 1 May 2025, adding space, directed-energy and counter-UAS businesses to the Switchblade and Puma lines. Fiscal 2026 revenue was $1,976.8 million, up 141%, and fiscal 2027 guidance is $2.125–2.225 billion. Recent orders include a $186 million Army delivery order for Switchblade 600 Block 2 and 300 Block 20 in February 2026. In March 2026 the Army bought Red Dragon one-way attack drones for more than $17 million.

General Atomics Aeronautical Systems

GA-ASI (Poway, California; private) is the large-UAS prime behind the MQ-9A Reaper and MQ-9B and builds more than 100 aircraft a year. Its YFQ-42A began flight testing in August 2025, and in June 2026 the Air Force awarded GA-ASI a production contract for the FQ-42A Collaborative Combat Aircraft.

Kratos

Kratos (San Diego, California; Nasdaq: KTOS) reported 2025 revenue of $1.347 billion, including $292.0 million from unmanned systems. It plans to build about 40 XQ-58 Valkyries a year by the end of 2027. In January 2026 the Marine Corps picked a Northrop Grumman–Kratos team for its drone-wingman programme, with Kratos supplying the Valkyrie.

Red Cat (Teal Drones)

Red Cat (San Juan, Puerto Rico; Nasdaq: RCAT) makes the Black Widow small reconnaissance drone through Teal Drones in Salt Lake City, Utah. Its 10-K says Teal was selected in November 2024 for the Army's Short Range Reconnaissance program of record. Revenue was $40.7 million in 2025. In August 2026 the company reaffirmed a 2026 target of $150–180 million. Black Widow was a Blue UAS Refresh winner in February 2025, which the company described as pending inclusion on the list.

Neros

Neros (El Segundo, California) builds low-cost FPV attack drones at volume. It raised a $250 million Series C at a $2.5 billion post-money valuation in August 2026, co-led by Sequoia, and says it makes about 1,200 aircraft a week. On the Drone Dominance leaderboard it placed second in Gauntlet I. In Gauntlet II it was first in close-quarters battle and third in deep strike.

Enterprise and public safety

Skydio

Skydio (San Mateo, California) builds the X10 and R10 drones and the Dock for X10. On 24 April 2026 it committed $3.5 billion over five years to US manufacturing, including a factory five times its current space. The same release reports more than 60,000 drones shipped and more than 1,200 public-safety agencies as customers. A day earlier it had closed a $110 million Series F at a $4.4 billion post-money valuation. On 23 July 2026 Skydio announced that the X10, Dock for X10 and R10 had joined the Blue UAS Cleared List, alongside the X10D.

BRINC

BRINC (Seattle, Washington) builds drone-as-first-responder systems: the Lemur 2, the Responder and the Starlink-connected Guardian. In July 2026 it raised $125 million in a round led by Motorola Solutions, which brought total funding above $280 million. The company says more than 900 agencies use its drones and that 2025 revenue more than tripled.

Flock Safety and Teledyne FLIR

• Flock Safety (Atlanta, Georgia) raised $275 million at a $7.5 billion valuation in March 2025. In October 2025 it launched Alpha, which it calls its first "American-made, NDAA-compliant drone system". The dock turns the drone around in under 90 seconds.
• Teledyne FLIR belongs to Teledyne Technologies (Thousand Oaks, California; NYSE: TDY). Its Black Hornet 4 nano-drone was approved for the Blue UAS list in June 2025. In May 2026 the Army selected its Rogue 1 loitering munition for the LASSO programme.

Delivery

• Zipline (South San Francisco, California) raised more than $600 million at a $7.6 billion valuation in January 2026 and expanded to Houston and Phoenix. By 4 September 2026 it reported more than 2.5 million deliveries and 140 million miles. In September 2026 Bloomberg reported talks to raise about $1 billion at a valuation near $20 billion; no close has been announced.
• Wing, an Alphabet company, flies for Walmart. In January 2026 Walmart said it would add 150 stores, for a network of more than 270 locations by 2027. In June 2026 it named seven more metros, and Wing reported "well over one million" commercial deliveries.
• Amazon Prime Air paused MK30 flights in January 2025 for a software update and resumed in March 2025. By August 2026 Amazon said it was operating in 11 metros. On 28 September 2026, 15 states and Harris County, Texas petitioned a federal court against the FAA's nationwide environmental finding for drone delivery. The petition challenges the regulatory path that all three delivery networks rely on.

Counter-UAS

• Dedrone by Axon. Dedrone was founded in Germany and has been part of Axon (Scottsdale, Arizona; Nasdaq: AXON) since October 2024. Axon's Q2 2026 results state that Dedrone revenue has passed $100 million and that Dedrone supported all 11 US World Cup stadiums.
• Epirus (Torrance, California) builds Leonidas, a high-power microwave system that disables drone electronics, including drones flying in groups. It closed a $250 million Series D in March 2025, taking total funding above $550 million. It has an Army contract for two Gen II Leonidas systems and an $11 million Marine Corps award from August 2026.
• Fortem Technologies (Lindon, Utah) makes the DroneHunter net-capture interceptor. It won a three-year, $18 million Army contract in February 2026.

Mitigation is reserved to authorised agencies in most of the US, so infrastructure operators usually buy detection and hand over to them. The vendor map is in counter-UAS without jamming.

Components and the NDAA supply chain

• Unusual Machines (Orlando, Florida; NYSE American: UMAC) makes NDAA-compliant drone components, including Fat Shark FPV goggles and motors, and sells through Rotor Riot. Q2 2026 revenue was $16.7 million, up 687% year on year, with $229.6 million in cash. It plans to expand motor production in Q4 and start making cameras in late 2026.
• ModalAI (San Diego, California) makes the VOXL 2 autopilot, which was the founding autopilot of the Blue UAS Framework. In August 2025 it had three FPV drones on the Cleared List and 16 Framework components, which it says is the most components of any drone manufacturer.

This layer decides how the others scale. The drone count Drone Dominance calls for depends on US motors, cameras, radios and flight controllers existing in volume.

The rules that sort the list

Three separate US regimes decide who can sell to whom. Our Blue UAS vs NDAA vs FCC explainer covers them in detail.

1. NDAA Section 848 (10 U.S.C. 4871 note) is a law. It bars the Department of Defense from buying or operating drones from China, Russia, Iran or North Korea, and drones that use their flight controllers, radios, data links, cameras, gimbals, ground software or data storage. It creates no certificate, so "NDAA compliant" is the vendor's own declaration.
2. Blue UAS is DCMA's list of vetted drones and components. It is item-specific: a cleared drone does not clear its dock.
3. The FCC Covered List. Since 22 December 2025 it has blocked new equipment authorisations for drones and critical components, docks included, produced in any foreign country. The exceptions are Blue UAS items and Buy American domestic end products, both exempt until 1 January 2028, and items with a Conditional Approval. Models authorised earlier can still be sold and used. The rule makes no exception for allied countries, so US production and Blue UAS status now carry commercial weight as well as defense weight.

Three forces shaping 2026

1. Capital is concentrating in defense. Anduril's $61 billion and Shield AI's $12.7 billion valuations are far above the rest of the US drone market. Neros reached $2.5 billion in August 2026 while making about 1,200 aircraft a week.
2. Manufacturing is moving back to the US. Skydio's $3.5 billion plan, Anduril's Arsenal-1 and Unusual Machines' motor lines all respond to the same pressure: federal money and FCC rules now favour hardware built in the US.
3. Autonomy is only as good as the ground layer. Delivery networks, drone-as-first-responder programmes and industrial inspection all need docks, battery logistics and data pipelines that run without a person on site. That layer sets how many sorties per day a fleet can fly.

To see how a US-owned infrastructure partner fits a programme, talk to us.

Related

• Drone-in-a-box: robotic battery swap and autonomous operations
• US defense R&D partnership
• DJI Dock alternatives: NDAA-compliant drone docks compared
• Top European drone companies in 2026