Utah-based counter-drone tech company secures $50M Lockheed Martin-led funding round

LINDON — An aerospace and counter-drone company based in Utah County is rapidly gaining momentum in the defense sector. Fortem Technologies on Wednesday announced the closure of a $50 million funding round led by Lockheed Martin.

In April, Lockheed Martin invested $25 million in the Lindon-based company, which has leveraged its exposure gained from deploying its own counter-unmanned aircraft systems equipment at the last two FIFA World Cup sites and being sanctioned by Russia after two years of supporting Ukraine's defense efforts.

"Our partners need counter-UAS (unmanned aerial systems) capabilities that can move faster than the threat," Stephanie Hill, the president of Lockheed Martin rotary and mission systems, said in a statement. "They need solutions they can field quickly, scale in volume and adapt rapidly. That's why we're investing ahead of the need. This collaboration reflects our shared commitment to delivering the right capability, at an affordable cost, and at the speed of relevance."

A release from Fortem Technologies said the demand for the variety of airspace protection it provides has increased rapidly — a reality underscored by the company's multimillion-dollar Department of Homeland Security deal to protect 2026 World Cup venues and a deal with the U.S. Army to protect installations around the world.

Additionally, Fortem Technologies in August was selected as a prime contractor for a five-year counter-drone indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract with the DHS, worth over $1 billion.

The $50 million Series B funding round, the company said, will allow it "to accelerate manufacturing at its Lindon, Utah facility and expand global deployment" of a litany of software and systems.

"The participation of Lockheed Martin, Unusual Machines, and other key investors confirms Fortem's leadership of airspace security," Charlie O'Connell, Fortem's chief business officer, said in a statement. "The threat is real, demand is here, and our technology is proven in real-world environments — from the Middle East to Europe to the World Cup. This capital lets Fortem scale to meet accelerating demand for our products."

One area could be artificial intelligence, with Fortem Technologies founder and chief technology officer Adam Robertson earlier in September hinting at a future involving AI-powered drone swarms.

"We see a future where there's not just a one-on-one, but a one-on-many," Robertson said. "The DroneHunter has up to four net guns on it already, so we can, with a single DroneHunter, take out up to four drones. We've demonstrated recently ... five DroneHunters dealing with five threats simultaneously where the machine learning technology — this AI that we applied to it — allowed the DroneHunters to automatically be assigned to various targets, fly deconflicted so they didn't hit each other, coordinate on which DroneHunter took out which threat, defeat them all simultaneously and land without the need for human intervention."

Robertson also said drones have revolutionized how war is conducted, adding that it only underscores the importance of drone defense at home in the future.

"We have to be prepared to defend against that," Robertson said. "With that fundamental change, I see drone protection as more fundamental across the world. We need to protect all of our critical assets, whether that's a dam, a power station, a capital building, a data center — all of these need protection from drone threats, and it could be a single, lone wolf actor that could do it."

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