Skydio

Drones · Public Safety Tech · Robotics

Funding

Axon invests $1.2B in Skydio, becomes exclusive police drone seller

Most of the money quietly buys out Skydio's existing investors rather than funding the company's own growth.

• Axon is investing an additional $1.2 billion in Skydio, lifting its fully diluted stake from about 15% to roughly 37% at a $5.2 billion pre-money valuation, and becoming Skydio's exclusive distributor to public safety agencies in the U.S. and Canada.
• Skydio, founded in 2014 and based in San Mateo, California, builds AI-powered autonomous drones and is described as the largest U.S.-based drone manufacturer, serving over 1,500 public safety customers and 4,000 organizations overall.
• Only about $254.9 million of the deal is new capital, from 25 million non-voting Series G preferred shares at $10.19617 each; the rest comes via a tender offer and secondary purchases from existing Skydio shareholders, paid roughly 60% cash and 40% Axon stock.
• Agencies using Axon's Drone as First Responder program have cut priority response times by as much as 65%, with drones arriving before officers on about 80% of deployed calls, and 28 million Americans now live within two miles of a Skydio DFR dock.
• The deal comes six months after Skydio's $110 million Series F at a $4.4 billion post-money valuation, a round CEO Adam Bry deliberately kept small even as existing investors pushed to put in more.
• Axon shares slumped roughly 14-18% after the announcement, as the company also trimmed its 2026 revenue growth forecast to about 30% following the exclusion of roughly $130 million in federal Dedrone deployments.
• By locking up exclusive public-safety distribution rather than acquiring Skydio outright, Axon tightens its grip on the policing-drone channel while leaving Skydio free to pursue military and commercial markets independently.