In case you missed it amidst the, like, ten thousand mega-raises in the past few days, it’s been quite the week for a certain Alabama-based drone company.
On Wednesday, Huntsville-based Performance Drone Works announced that it’s raised a cool $110M+ Series B led by Ondas with participation from Hood River, Cedar Pine, Hanwha Asset Management’s venture fund, Booz Allen Hamilton, and other new and existing investors.
The company says it’ll use the money to “fund future growth initiatives and ramp production of PDW’s multi-mission drones, among other strategic programs.”
The raise is a mega level-up from the company’s $16.4M Series A at a $132M valuation last March. Those drone dollars—they really do be flowing.
Zoom zoom: PDW has a fun origin story. The company was founded in 2018 out of the Drone Racing League (F1 for drones, essentially), then reincorporated as Performance Drone Works in 2020.
- The company raised an $8.6M seed round in 2024, that $16.39 Series A in 2025, and scored $35M in strategic funding from Ondas late last year, all according to Pitchbook data. To note: That $35M from Ondas counts towards this $110M round, according to the company.
- PDW has scored three shiny fun contracts through the Army’s Transformation in Contact (TiC) program—most recently a $20.9M deal for their C100 multi-mission drone.
- They also have contracts with USSOCOM and the US Air Force.
- The company was tapped to participate in the Pentagon’s Drone Dominance competition, but was not down-selected after the first “Gauntlet” earlier this month.
- FWIW: In a statement announcing the raise, the company said it “supports every branch of the U.S. Military as well as federal, local and international public safety entities.”
Eye in the sky: True to their hardcore drone pilot origins, the company has remained laser-focused on UAS. They have two main drone-flavored offerings:
- C100 Heavy-Lift Quadcopter: PDW’s flagship product, a medium-range and modular reconnaissance quadcopter with a 10lb payload and a range of about 6-9 miles.
- AM-FPV (Autonomous Micro FPV Drone): A tiny short-range FPV drone built for ISR and strike. It’s super small, super speedy, and easily packable.
They’ve also got all the fun accoutrements that make drones, well, swarm-y and weapon-y, including the “SIM flight simulator, CORE mission planning software, Multi-Mission Payloads (MMP), Range Extension Kit, and an anti-jam radio.”
Big leagues: With this new cash money, it sounds like the name of the game is scale.
“The United States cannot afford to fall behind or rely on foreign supply chains,” PDW CEO James Slider said in a statement. “We are investing in expanded production capacity and a U.S.-anchored supply chain to ensure resilient, domestically built systems delivered at the highest level.”
Good thing the company opened a new 90,000 sq ft Huntsville facility last summer, which it says will be able to produce 350 C100s and 5,000 AM-FPVs per month. We’re willing to bet a lot of this funding will go towards making that drone factory of the future dream a reality.
“PDW isn’t just building better drones, but a domestic production base to meet our nation’s growing demand,” Eric Brock, Ondas CEO & Chairman, said in a statement.
Drone dominance, indeed.