“DroneShield has arrived at its inflection point”: Counterdrone tech company bags second $11m deal

Less than a month after announcing it had secured its largest purchase order ever, counterdrone technology company DroneShield (ASX: DRO) has today announced anther $11 million purchase order for an unnamed government agency customer.

Expected to be delivered by mid-2023, the order for DroneShield’s counterdrone equipment represents a major step forward for the company revenue-wise, with CEO Oleg Vornik declaring the company has ‘arrived at its inflection point’.

“Our processes are scaled up and ready for this step change in supply chain, production and deployment,” Vornik said.

“Like with the other $11 million order received last month, the purchase contains an annual subscription component as we move to annual recurring revenues becoming a meaningful part of our business.”

The latest deal means Sydney-based DroneShield has announced $22 million worth of purchase orders within the last three weeks, and comes on the back of the company reporting in December that it was on track for record results.

Both purchase orders are significantly larger than two other recently penned deals with unnamed government agencies during the the tail end of 2021, which were both around the $1 million mark.

After announcing the $11 million December deal - which surpassed DroneShield’s entire revenue for 2021 - the company’s shares surged and have continued to climb in the limited trading days since.

Early trade data suggests DRO is going to have another big day in the sun on the ASX today, with shares up by 12 per cent at the time of writing.

Today’s news follows two major announcements from DroneShield during the first few days of the new year.

On 3 January, the company revealed that its technology was deployed in the inauguration ceremony for the President of Brazil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, held at the Cathedral of Brasilia on the first day of 2023.

The company says its DroneGun Tactical product was utilised to neutralise four ‘suspicious’ drones that were heading towards the now-sworn in President at the inauguration ceremony which was attended by tens of thousands of people.

DroneShield’s presence at the inauguration follows expansion by the company into the Brazilian market, where it has received formal approval from the nation’s National Telecommunications Agency for deployment of its devices.

“Brazil is a key South American market for DroneShield, and we are pleased to see deployment of our systems in the country at the highest level, which is expected to flow down to further systems being utilised in Brazil, as counter-UAS (Unmanned Aircraft System) requirements continue to rapidly grow,” Vornik said at the time.

Two days later, the firm announced it had delivered all contractual elements of its Defence Innovation Hub project, worth approximately $800,000. The company says the program has resulted in ‘significant improvements’ to its optical/thermal AI engine, as well as development of a multi-Sensor Fusion Artificial Intelligence (SFAI) engine that is expected to be a core part of technological developments through 2023.

“It is clear that the multi-sensor fusion system created by DroneShield is truly unique on a global scale,” DroneShield CTO Angus Bean said.

“The algorithms and architecture being used are producing excellent user outcomes, without the ‘server-farm’ levels of compute-power that similar systems require.”

As for other recent wins, the company recently received recommendation by the US Joint Counter-small Unmanned Aircraft Systems Office (JCO) for deployment of its counter-drone technology as a Service across the US Department of Defence.

The news also comes on the heels of DroneShield receiving a $3.7 million investment from California-headquartered Epirus a developer of software-defined directed energy systems that enable unprecedented counter-electronics effects and power management solutions to optimise power efficiency in defense and commercial applications. This new investor has raised approximately US$300 million since it was founded in 2018.