Shield AI

AI-powered autonomous defence platform; Hivemind AI pilot software flies F-16s and MQ-9 drones without GPS or comms. Series F at $2.8B (2023, Snowpoint Ventures). Contracts with US Air Force, Navy, and allied nations; revenue growing 3× YoY on multi-year government programmes.

Defense🇺🇸 United StatesFounded 2015ISO/NSO equityshield.ai ↗

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Reviewed May 24, 2026 (2d ago)

Current estimate

4 methods · May 24, 2026High confidence (58%)

$6.0B

range $4.4B – $7.5B

Implied per-share: $29.8 · vs last primary +113%

This estimate reflects what informed investors are paying on secondary markets like Hiive and Forge — not the 409A valuation on your grant letter.

Last primary round

$2.8B

Series F · 34mo ago

Secondary signal

$5.7B

Hiive · 2026-05+104%

Sourced from Forge/Hiive public data. Full order books require a paid subscription; figures shown are best-effort from public disclosures.

Headcount

900

employees · LinkedIn+38%

LinkedIn count — directional proxy only. Historical figure sourced via Wayback Machine; treat ±15% as normal variance.

Revenue (est.)

$200M

annual run rate · est.

Complete company data

Every input we use, where we got it from, and how much we trust it.

Field	Value	Source	Confidence
Company fundamentals
Sector	Defense	Editorial classification	high
Headquarters	🇺🇸 United States	Company website · Crunchbase	high
Founded	2015	Company website · Wikipedia	high
Website	shield.ai	Direct	high
Latest primary round
Post-money valuation	$2.8B	TechCrunch Jul 2023	high
Round name	Series F	TechCrunch Jul 2023	high
Date	2023-07-18 (34 months ago)	TechCrunch Jul 2023	high
Lead investor	Snowpoint Ventures	TechCrunch Jul 2023	high
Amount raised	$300M	TechCrunch Jul 2023	medium
Capitalization
Total fully-diluted shares	200M	SEC Form D · secondary price math · cap-table leaks › notes Public total fully-diluted share count: estimated from SEC Form D filings, secondary-market pricing math (implied valuation ÷ price per share), and leaked cap-table summaries. Considered the lowest-confidence input.	low
Implied share price (latest primary)	$30	Valuation × 1000 / share count (= $2.8B ÷ 200M)	medium
Primary equity type granted	ISO/NSO	Public reports of company equity practices	high
Financials
Annual revenue (est.)	$200M	Sacra · The Information · press leaks › notes Annual revenue: best public estimates from Sacra, The Information, WSJ leaks, or company-stated ARR. Where official, we cite the source on the funding round.	medium
EV / Revenue (implied)	14.0x	Computed from valuation ÷ revenue	medium
Headcount
Employees (now)	900	LinkedIn — current company page count › notes Headcount: LinkedIn 'Company' page employee count, taken now and approximately 12 months ago via the Wayback Machine. Treat as a directional proxy for revenue growth, not a hard number.	medium
Employees (12 months ago)	650	LinkedIn via Wayback Machine	medium
12-month headcount growth	+38%	Computed	medium
Methodology inputs
Sector ETF proxy	ITA	Editorial choice — most representative public ETF › notes Sector ETF: editorial choice of the most representative public-market proxy. Annual return: 3-year trailing average from Yahoo Finance, refreshed quarterly.	medium
ETF annual return (trailing 3-yr)	28%	Yahoo Finance · refreshed quarterly	medium

Funding history

Primary rounds reported in Bloomberg, WSJ, TechCrunch, Reuters, or SEC Form D filings (efts.sec.gov). Linked per round below.

Valuation progression (equity rounds)

Valuation progression · equity rounds

$2.8Blatest · Series F

Total growth

11×

Our estimate

$6.0B

Primary round

Down round

Our estimate

Series F+22%2023-07-18

$2.8B

Led by Snowpoint Ventures · raised $300M

Source: TechCrunch Jul 2023

Series E+35%2022-06-15

$2.3B

Led by The Raine Group · raised $165M

Source: DefenseOne Jun 2022

Series D+143%2021-07-14

$1.7B

Led by Snowpoint Ventures · raised $210M

Source: TechCrunch Jul 2021

Series C+180%2020-05-12

$0.7B

Led by Andreessen Horowitz · raised $90M

Source: TechCrunch May 2020

Series B2019-04-01

$0.3B

Led by Andreessen Horowitz · raised $40M

Source: TechCrunch

Secondary market signals

Secondary market signals: bid/ask/trade indications from Hiive (hiive.com), Forge Global, Caplight Index, and tender prices reported in the press.

Implied valuation over time

Implied valuation · secondary market

$5.7B+138% vs first recorded

Bid

Trade

⚠

Forge and Hiive publish aggregated market data publicly, but full order books, individual bids/asks, and confirmed trade prices require a paid account. The figures below are sourced from their public summaries, press-reported tender prices, and SEC disclosures. They represent the best publicly available signal — not a guaranteed executable price.

Date	Type	Source	Price / share	Implied valuation
2026-05-03	trade	Hiive	$18	$5.7B
2026-04-08	trade	Public Report	$17	$5.4B
2026-02-14	bid	Hiive	$16	$3.2B

View live indications: Hiive ↗ · SEC Form D filings ↗

Public peer comparables

Public peer comparables: editorial selection of public companies with the closest business model. EV/Revenue and growth from public 10-Q filings and Bloomberg, refreshed quarterly.

Ticker	Company	EV / Revenue	Revenue growth	As of
KTOS	Kratos Defense & Security Solut	7.44x	+23%	2026-05-20
NOC	Northrop Grumman Corporation	1.86x	+4%	2026-05-20
PLTR	Palantir Technologies Inc.	62.81x	+85%	2026-05-20
RTX	RTX Corporation	2.64x	+9%	2026-05-20

Confidence breakdown

How much we trust each of the four valuation methods for this specific company, and why.

Method A — Peer-multiple

weight 25%→ $7.2B75% confidence

Growth-weighted peer EV/Revenue: 45.8x → 22% private-company discount → 35.8x on $200M revenue

Method B — Secondary-implied

weight 45%→ $4.6B70% confidence

Recency-weighted average of 5 secondary indications (180-day decay)

Method C — Primary time-decay

weight 20%→ $7.4B28% confidence

$2.8B round (2023-07-18) × 9.51× growth × 0.86× multiple decay over 2.9 years — capped at 1.3× recent secondary ($5.7B → $7.4B)

Method D — Sector momentum

weight 10%→ $5.7B17% confidence

↳ Effectively excluded from the blend — this method is structurally unreliable for this company.

$2.8B × (1 + 28% p.j.)^2.9yr = $5.7B via ITA ETF-proxy

Overall confidence

58%

Weighted average of the four methods. Above 65% is high, 40–65% medium, below 40% low.

High

Worked example for an employee

A concrete walk-through using a hypothetical employee profile. Same engine the calculator uses — try it with your real numbers.

Profile: a hypothetical employee who joined Shield AI 24 months ago (2024-05-26) with 2,000 options, on the standard 4-year vesting schedule with a 1-year cliff.

Vesting

1,000 of 2,000

50% vested at month 24

Implied share price (mid)

$30

weighted average of 4 methods

Gross vested value

$29,797

vested shares × implied price

Net value

$29,797

no strike, gross = net

Tax (rough)

$3,344

US federal only · AMT risk: low

What if the next round is…

Up round +30%

$33,683

New round at +30% valuation, 15% new shares issued

Down round −30%

$17,381

New round at −30% valuation, 20% new shares (higher dilution in distress)

Secondary today

$25,327

Sale on the secondary market at the typical 15% discount to the mid estimate

These numbers come from the same engine as the live calculator. Walk through with your own grant: use your real numbers →

Transparent assumptions

What we assumed where exact data isn't available. If any of these don't match your situation, the numbers above will be off.

Fully-diluted share count

200M shares

We don't have authoritative cap-table access for private companies. The number above is reconstructed from SEC Form D filings, secondary-market price-vs-valuation math, and leaked share-class summaries. Actual fully-diluted count (including unvested option pool and SAFEs) may differ by 5–15%.

Common-stock waterfall

1.0× to common

We assume a clean common-stock outcome — i.e. preferred-share liquidation preferences and ratchets do not extract value before common. In a down-exit, this assumption can be very wrong: preferred stack can take 30–70% of proceeds.

Private-company illiquidity discount

22% off public peers

Applied to Method A (peer-multiple). Per-company because category leaders with deep secondary markets and a clear IPO path warrant a smaller discount than early-stage names. The literature range is 10–35%; for Shield AI we use 22% based on secondary-market depth, valuation history, and proximity to liquidity.

Revenue growth assumption (Method C)

120% YoY

Compounded forward from the last primary date to today to estimate the company's value drift. Set per-company based on disclosed or reported ARR trajectory. Method C is further capped at 1.3× the most recent secondary trade (if any) to stop runaway extrapolation when revenue growth outpaces what the market is actually paying.

Sector ETF momentum (Method D)

ITA @ 28%/year

Method D applies the trailing return of ITA as a market-proxy adjustment to the primary valuation. Crude — meant as a tiebreaker when peer and secondary data conflict, not as a primary signal.

Outlier auto-downweight

Methods >50% from median get ½ weight

Robust-statistics safety net: any method whose output strays more than 50% from the median of the other three methods has its confidence weight halved when computing the blended mid-point. Prevents a single bad extrapolation from dragging the headline.

Recency decay for secondary trades

180-day half-life (e⁻ᵈ/¹⁸⁰)

A trade from 30 days ago counts ~5× more than one from 180 days ago. Tunable; some platforms use shorter half-lives.

Tax estimate

US federal only, single filer

Uses 2024 US federal brackets, ignoring state tax, NIIT, AMT credit recovery, and any other deductions. Treat as a directional sanity check, not a tax bill.

All data from public sources. Not investment, tax, or legal advice. Not affiliated with Shield AI. Last refreshed manually — see methodology for our update cadence.