Who owns Shield AI? Ownership structure explained (2026)

Shield AI builds autonomous pilot software for military aircraft. Its core product, Hivemind, is an AI system that allows aircraft, drones, and other vehicles to operate autonomously in GPS-denied and contested environments, where traditional navigation and remote control fail. The technology is designed for the scenario where electronic warfare has disrupted the communications and positioning systems that modern military operations depend on.

That capability has made Shield AI one of the most contract-active defense technology companies in the United States. In February 2026, the US Air Force selected Hivemind as a mission autonomy provider for its Collaborative Combat Aircraft program, and the software flew aboard Anduril's Fury drone (the YFQ-44A). In May 2026, the Pentagon tapped Shield AI to bring Hivemind to the low-cost LUCAS attack drone, driven by surging demand for expendable unmanned systems.

Understanding who owns Shield AI matters because the company is building the software that will govern autonomous military aircraft. Ownership shapes what gets built, who it gets sold to, and what constraints are placed on the technology's use.

Shield AI was founded in 2015 by Ryan Tseng, Brandon Tseng, and Andrew Reiter in San Diego, California. The company is incorporated in the United States and maintains its headquarters in San Diego.

Brandon Tseng is a former US Navy SEAL who served multiple combat deployments and observed firsthand the cost of operating in environments where US forces lacked information dominance. His operational experience shaped Shield AI's founding thesis: that AI-powered autonomy could make military operations safer and more effective in conditions where human operators are at a disadvantage.

Gary Steele has served as CEO since May 2025. Co-founder Ryan Tseng, the company's former CEO, is now president and chief strategy officer, and Nathan Michael is chief technology officer. Co-founder Andrew Reiter was part of the original founding team.

Shield AI's flagship product is Hivemind, an autonomous AI pilot platform. The software has been integrated into multiple aircraft, including the V-BAT vertical takeoff drone, the X-BAT autonomous VTOL fighter jet unveiled in October 2025, and the Boeing MQ-25 tanker drone, and it flies Anduril's Fury (YFQ-44A) in the Air Force's Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) program. Hivemind allows aircraft to navigate, evade threats, and complete missions without GPS, radio communication, or remote human control.

The company also acquired Martin UAV in 2021, which manufactures the V-BAT drone, giving Shield AI a hardware product line alongside its software platform. In March 2026, alongside its Series G round, Shield AI acquired Aechelon Technology, a flight-simulation and image-generation software developer, to feed high-fidelity simulation into Hivemind's autonomy development.

Shield AI's most recent confirmed valuation is $12.7 billion, set during its March 2026 Series G funding round. The company is projecting more than $540 million in revenue for 2026, representing over 80% revenue growth year-over-year.

Shield AI has no public stock. Its shares do not trade on any exchange. No IPO has been publicly announced, though the company's growth rate and investor profile make it a plausible IPO candidate in the medium term.

The equity stakes of the three co-founders have not been publicly disclosed. As founders of an 11-year-old company that has raised significant capital across multiple rounds, their stakes have been diluted from founding levels but remain the most significant individual positions on the cap table. Ryan and Brandon Tseng's dual roles as active executives give them both economic and operational influence over the company.

No specific governance structure, such as dual-class shares, has been publicly disclosed for Shield AI.

Shield AI has raised capital across multiple rounds, with the pace and size of raises accelerating significantly after 2023:

Note: Round-by-round details for earlier rounds vary across sources. The Series G is the most precisely documented, with $1.5 billion in common equity led by Advent International and JPMorgan, plus $500 million in Blackstone preferred equity.

Advent International is one of the world's largest private equity firms, with extensive experience investing in defense, aerospace, and government services companies. Its decision to co-lead Shield AI's Series G represents a significant shift in Shield AI's investor base, from venture capital-dominated to large-scale private equity involvement.

JPMorgan's Security and Resiliency Initiative is a dedicated investment vehicle focused on national security technology. JPMorgan's direct participation through a defense-focused vehicle, rather than through a general growth fund, signals institutional conviction in the defense tech category.

Blackstone provided $500 million in preferred equity, a structured instrument that carries fixed-return characteristics. Blackstone's involvement adds a private credit dimension to Shield AI's capital structure alongside traditional equity.

Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) led the Series C in 2020 and remains invested. A16z has been a consistent backer of defense technology companies alongside its consumer and enterprise software investments.

Snowpoint Ventures has participated across multiple rounds and represents a defense-specialist investor focused specifically on national security technology companies.

Other investors include Innovation X Advisors, Riot Ventures, Disruptive, and Apandion, all of which joined the Series G round. L3Harris Technologies came in as a new strategic investor in the March 2025 Series F-1.

Shield AI has not announced IPO plans. The company's $12.7 billion valuation, rapid revenue growth, and high-profile government contracts make it a plausible IPO candidate within a few years. However, the March 2026 fundraise at $2 billion suggests the company is prioritizing growth capital over near-term liquidity. Defense technology companies also face additional considerations around IPO disclosures, given the classified or sensitive nature of some of their contracts.

Gary Steele became CEO of Shield AI in May 2025. He joined from Cisco, where he was president of go-to-market following Cisco's acquisition of Splunk, and he had been CEO of Splunk and, before that, the founding CEO of Proofpoint, which he built into a publicly traded cybersecurity company. Steele was hired to scale Shield AI's Hivemind autonomy products and aircraft business, and he also holds a seat on the company's board. His appointment marked a shift from founder-led management to an experienced enterprise software operator running the company.

Ryan Tseng co-founded Shield AI in 2015 and served as CEO from inception until May 2025, when he became president and chief strategy officer. As CEO he led the company's fundraising and government contracting and grew it into a multi-billion-dollar business. He now sets long-term strategy and corporate priorities. His background is in business and engineering: before Shield AI he founded WiPower, a wireless-charging company acquired by Qualcomm.

Brandon Tseng co-founded Shield AI after serving as a Navy SEAL. His combat deployments, particularly in environments where US forces faced information disadvantages, informed the company's founding thesis about autonomous systems in contested environments. As President, he leads product strategy and government relations, drawing on his personal relationships within the military and defense procurement community.

Brandon's operational background has been central to Shield AI's positioning and credibility with military customers. He has represented Shield AI in congressional testimony and policy forums on autonomous weapons and defense modernization.

Nathan Michael is Shield AI's chief technology officer and leads the development and deployment of Hivemind. He joined Shield AI in 2017 from Carnegie Mellon University, where he was an associate research professor in the Robotics Institute and directed its Resilient Intelligent Systems Lab. His teams are responsible for the autonomy software that defines Shield AI's competitive position. Co-founder Andrew Reiter remains part of the founding team but is no longer the company's CTO.

CEO Gary Steele joined the board when he was appointed in 2025. The full board of directors is not otherwise publicly disclosed. Given the investor lineup, Advent International and JPMorgan's initiative likely have board representation following the Series G. Andreessen Horowitz has participated across rounds and likely holds a board seat or observer right. No board chair has been publicly identified.

Hivemind enables autonomous operation of aircraft that may be armed. The legal and ethical framework governing autonomous lethal weapons systems is actively contested in international law. Key debates include whether autonomous systems can comply with the laws of armed conflict, specifically the requirements for distinction (telling combatants from civilians), proportionality, and human accountability for targeting decisions.

The US Department of Defense has policies requiring meaningful human control over lethal autonomous weapons systems, but the exact definition of what constitutes sufficient human control remains a matter of active policy debate. Shield AI's contracts specify how Hivemind is deployed within those constraints, but the underlying technology has capabilities that outpace current policy frameworks.

Autonomous military AI technology is subject to US export control regulations, specifically the Export Administration Regulations (EAR) and International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR). Shield AI's ability to sell Hivemind to allied governments is constrained by these frameworks. The AUKUS technology-sharing arrangement and bilateral defense agreements affect which international sales are permitted. As the technology becomes more capable, export control constraints will shape Shield AI's addressable international market.

Shield AI holds contracts that involve classified information about US military capabilities and vulnerabilities. As a private company, its ownership and governance are subject to less transparency than a public company, but its access to classified programs means its ownership and foreign investment exposure are subject to CFIUS review. Any change in significant ownership, such as a foreign acquisition, would trigger regulatory scrutiny.

Shield AI competes not only with legacy defense contractors like Northrop Grumman and Boeing in the drone and autonomous systems space, but also with peer defense technology startups including Anduril, Joby Aviation, and Sarcos. Its rivalry with Anduril is not clear-cut: on the Collaborative Combat Aircraft program, Hivemind flies aboard Anduril's Fury drone, making the two both competitors and partners. The US Air Force's Collaborative Combat Aircraft program, in which Shield AI is now a selected vendor, is also likely to attract competition from larger defense primes in subsequent phases.

Shield AI's ownership structure carries implications for US military capabilities and for the companies and countries that compete with the United States.

The shift in Shield AI's investor base from venture capital (a16z) to large-scale private equity (Advent International) and institutional capital (JPMorgan, Blackstone) signals a maturation in the company's capital profile. Venture investors typically seek liquidity through an IPO or acquisition. Private equity and institutional investors have different timelines and return expectations. That shift could delay a public offering or enable a larger, longer-duration growth strategy.

Brandon Tseng's role as a former Navy SEAL who maintains active relationships within the military community gives Shield AI a form of institutional trust that purely civilian-led defense companies lack. His personal network is an ownership-adjacent asset that influences Shield AI's access to contracts, classified briefings, and policy discussions.

For the US military and allied governments that purchase Shield AI's technology, ownership determines who holds the intellectual property underlying Hivemind and who has the right to modify, license, or transfer that technology. As autonomous military AI becomes more strategically critical, the ownership of the companies building it becomes a national security consideration in itself.

Gary Steele is the CEO of Shield AI. He took over in May 2025, having previously led Splunk and Proofpoint. Co-founder Ryan Tseng, who was CEO from the company's 2015 founding, is now president and chief strategy officer.

No. Shield AI is a privately held company with no public stock listing. No IPO has been announced. The company raised $2 billion in private funding in March 2026 at a $12.7 billion valuation.

Shield AI was co-founded in 2015 by Ryan Tseng, Brandon Tseng (a former US Navy SEAL), and Andrew Reiter. Ryan Tseng led the company as CEO until 2025 and is now president and chief strategy officer, and Brandon Tseng is president. Gary Steele has served as CEO since May 2025.

Major investors include Advent International and JPMorgan's Security and Resiliency Initiative (co-led the March 2026 Series G), Blackstone ($500M preferred equity, Series G), Andreessen Horowitz (led the Series C), Snowpoint Ventures (multiple rounds), and L3Harris Technologies (Series F-1). Total capital raised exceeds $3.5 billion.

Hivemind is Shield AI's AI-powered autonomous pilot platform. It allows aircraft, drones, and other vehicles to operate without GPS, radio communication, or real-time human control, enabling operations in environments where electronic warfare or communications jamming would disable traditional systems. The US Air Force has selected Hivemind for its Collaborative Combat Aircraft drone prototype program.

In February 2026, the US Air Force selected Shield AI's Hivemind software as a mission autonomy provider for the Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) program, and Hivemind has flown aboard Anduril's Fury (YFQ-44A). CCA drones are designed to fly alongside crewed fighter jets, extending their capabilities and absorbing threats that would otherwise be directed at the crewed aircraft. In June 2026, the Air Force named Shield AI among the vendors competing on mission autonomy for CCA Increment 1.