US Drone Startup Shield AI Finds Niche in Ukraine

As Ukraine strives to bolster its domestic drone industry, only a handful of foreign drone makers are making a successful entry into the market – Shield AI being one of them.

Shield AI, a US military startup founded by a former Navy Seal member alongside his brother, utilizes artificial intelligence (AI) to help guide drones to their targets, thus overcoming the prolific electronic warfare (EW) jamming across the Ukrainian front – its key advantage over its competitors, as per a Wall Street Journal (WSJ) report.

“Shield’s V-BAT has AI software, sensors and Nvidia chips on board. That technology enables the drone to maneuver itself, survey battlefields and identify targets without a remote pilot or GPS. It can fly for 12 hours or 600 miles [965 km] and carry 25 pounds [11 kg] of explosives to drop on targets,” WSJ reported.

WSJ said Shield AI’s V-BAT model, portable enough to fit in the back of a pickup truck, has also undergone real-world testing in Ukraine – once outside Kyiv against seven jammers on full blast, according to Ukrainian testers and a Ukrainian military document, and once near Dnipro by spotting a Russian surface-to-air missile system behind lines of active jammers, according to Shield AI’s CEO.

“It feels like a good drone for battle,” a Ukrainian drone pilot who tested the V-BAT told the WSJ. “A lot of the drones don’t pass this test because they don’t have the capabilities.”

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A contract supplying more than 200 advanced drones to Ukraine, each costing $1 million, would more than double the company’s $163 million revenue last year and potentially help it become a leading military tech startup in the US, WSJ noted.

The WSJ added Kyiv likely receives a discount per unit when purchasing in bulk, and that the deal would be financed by Kyiv’s Western allies – though the upcoming US election, depending on the results, could also derail that support and funding.

However, the company is currently producing about 120 units per year – a far cry from Ukraine’s 150,000 units per month production.

That said, the majority of those drones are low-cost, one-time use first-person view (FPV) drones, whereas advanced drones like V-BAT are still few and far between. 

In October, a Financial Times (FT) report, citing industry representatives in Ukraine, said constrained capital has prevented Kyiv from purchasing all available drones and investing in further research and development. Some said the government contracts barely cover the production costs.

Though Ukraine bolsters more than 200 domestic drone makers, only a handful of foreign makers broke into the Ukrainian market as the country prioritizes domestic production.

Some notable firms include Turkey’s Baykar, which supplied the Bayraktar drones to Kyiv used extensively during the onset of Russia’s 2022 invasion, and Germany’s Quantum Systems, which began setting up production in Ukraine earlier this year.

While drones from some foreign commercial makers, including US maker Skydio, have also found use in Ukraine – including war crimes documentation – military adaptations have been hindered by Russia’s persistent EW jamming.