AI defense

The names in this sector, read for an acquisition

Prepared by PiggyGPT, as of Oct 11, 2026

• ·No company in this sector has a reported approach or an agreed deal on file. Those with a cited tie to a plausible buyer: Shield AI’s Hivemind flies on Anduril’s Collaborative Combat Aircraft airframe; Hadrian holds a Lockheed Martin manufacturing memorandum; General Dynamics Land Systems is a returning Epirus investor; Axon is Skydio’s exclusive public-safety reseller; RTX Ventures holds Hermeus stock and Pratt & Whitney licensed it to build F100 engines; SMX delivers Vannevar’s agents to combatant commands; Lockheed Martin Ventures led Firestorm’s seed and stayed in; BAE Systems, RTX and Oshkosh each integrate Forterra’s AutoDrive; Saab holds 5 percent of Helsing; Airbus co-led Quantum Systems’ Series D and Hensoldt invested in its Series C; and K2 Space’s satellite buses host Anduril’s Golden Dome interceptors. The rest show contracts and rounds and no buyer.
• ·The largest, Anduril at a $61 billion post-money, is itself an acquirer, and its chief executive said in July 2026 that the company is in no rush to list and can stay private as long as it needs to. Its page carries the rest of that record; all of it reads against a sale.Orange County Business Journal, Jul 9, 2026
• ·Primary rounds in 2026 priced Helsing at $18 billion, Castelion at $13 billion, Shield AI at $12.7 billion, Saronic at $9.25 billion, Quantum Systems at about $8 billion, Sierra Space at $8 billion, Hadrian at $7.87 billion, K2 Space at $6.8 billion, Tekever at $6.4 billion, Mach Industries at $3.7 billion, Neros at $2.5 billion, True Anomaly at $2.2 billion and Hermeus at $1 billion. A company raising at those marks is choosing capital over a sale, for now. Rebellion Defense and Vannevar Labs have no priced round since 2021 and 2023.
• ·The 2026 exemplar deals on this site (SpaceX and Cursor, Nvidia and Hugging Face, AMD and World Labs) each followed a strategic investor or partner already in place. In this sector, the equity ties of that kind are General Dynamics in Epirus, RTX Ventures in Hermeus, Lockheed Martin Ventures with Booz Allen Ventures in Firestorm Labs, Saab in Helsing, and Airbus and Hensoldt in Quantum Systems; the rest are partnerships. None has been reported as talks.

A summary of what the figures on this page add up to, prepared by PiggyGPT from the record on file and its cited sources. Not the Street's view, and not advice.