Less than a year after dropping a cool $4.1B to acquire BlueHalo, AV—the artist formerly known as AeroVironment—is back with another acquisition. Earlier this week, the company snapped up California-based drone manufacturing and design firm ESAero for $200M.
Under the deal, ESAero will function as a subsidiary of AV under its Loitering Munition Systems business unit.
Big ballers: With an over $11B market cap and a range of popular products—especially the Switchblade loitering munition—AV is a big player in the drone and—in case you missed certain laser-flavored happenings by the border—counter-drone scene, so we’ll kick things off with ESAero.
The company both designs and engineers UAS for other companies and manufactures a range of its own products, including:
- Lumberjack, a multi-strike Group 3 UAS, launched from ground systems or air vehicles.
- VESA, an interceptor drone with a top speed of 120mph, vertical takeoff, and onboard target detection and tracking.
- Fast-ISR, a small quadcopter designed for ISR and adaptable for munition or EW payloads.
ESAero also has a 32,000-square-foot design facility and a 53,000-square-foot manufacturing site, which focuses on UAS design, electric and hybrid propulsion systems, prototyping, and full-scale manufacturing.
“What the DoW demands, especially in the UAS and counter-UAS space, is high-quality production volume,” AV Chief Growth Officer Church Hutton told Tectonic. “ESAero is both a design house and capable manufacturer already in full-rate production on a number of things, [which gives] us additional production to help accelerate fielding.”
Deal deets: The $200M deal—roughly $160M in stock and the rest in cash—was a pretty easy bet for AV. “ESAero is profitable, so in addition to adding production capacity, it’s an accretive acquisition from a bottom-line perspective, and increases our ability to reinvest in new systems development,” Hutton said.
And from the sounds of it, AV might not be done with their shopping just yet.
“AV has a robust M&A pipeline. We’re constantly assessing and looking at potential opportunities,” Hutton added. “We value companies on the basis of cost, capability, and demonstrated performance, not [total addressable market]. We’re not here for hopes and dreams.”