Shield AI: a small DIU contract to a flying service

COMPANY

Shield AI (U.S. autonomy and drone maker)

LANES

DIU (ch 05), Homeland Security (ch 15), Navy ordering agreement

BIGGEST MOVE

Coast Guard IDIQ, $198.1M potential value, Jun 26, 2024

BUYER

DIU; Coast Guard; NAVAIR

Starting point

An early-stage drone startup. DIU later held it up as an example of a startup that used a small DIU contract before raising venture money.

Path through the lanes

AUG 2016 DIU awards Shield AI a $1.4M contract. About seven months later the company raised an $11M Series A (diu.mil, archived copy).

JUN 26, 2024 Coast Guard awards a firm-fixed-price IDIQ for cutter-based drone ISR, contractor-owned and contractor-operated, five one-year ordering periods through 2029, total potential value $198.1M; Shield AI deploys its V-BAT (uscg.mil).

2026 SAM.gov lists Shield AI among the holders of a NAVAIR UAS ISR Basic Ordering Agreement (N0001926G1006).

What a founder can copy

Sell the outcome as a service when the buyer lacks operators: the Coast Guard bought flight hours and data, with installation, pilots and training included.

What this means for you

A small first award can unlock private capital and later services work. The service model let a buyer start without building its own drone unit.

Next step: If your buyer has no trained operators, price a contractor-operated option alongside the hardware.

Sources: diu.mil, Startups highlight working with DoD (archived; live page returned a server error Oct 19, 2026) · uscg.mil, Jun 27, 2024 · SAM.gov, NAVAIR UAS ISR notice