Axon announced on 5 November 2026 an additional $1.2 billion investment in the drone maker Skydio, according to its press release, filed as Exhibit 99.1 to a Form 8-K with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. The release says the agreement will add approximately 20% to Axon’s fully diluted ownership of Skydio at a $5.2 billion pre-money valuation, and that Axon becomes Skydio’s exclusive channel partner for public safety customers in the United States and Canada. The 8-K, which Lens read through a summary, says Axon held about 15% of Skydio as of 30 September 2026 and expects about 37% on a fully diluted basis after the transactions.

How the $1.2 billion is structured

The release says the sum covers “new capital for Skydio and purchases of shares from existing Skydio shareholders”, without giving a split. The 8-K sets out the tranches. Axon is buying non-voting Series G preferred stock at $10.19617 a share. The first tranche, 25,000,000 shares or about $254.9 million, was a purchase of newly issued shares from Skydio, paid half in cash and half in Axon stock, and closed on 5 November. The later tranches are purchases from existing holders: a tender offer for up to 68,451,508 Series G shares, a secondary purchase from selling holders, both expected to settle in the fourth quarter of 2026, and a committed secondary of 1,548,492 shares for cash expected in the first quarter of 2027. The filing sets a 120,000,000-share target across all of these, which Lens calculates at about $1.22 billion. About 60% of the total is expected to be cash, or about $720 million, according to the 8-K and DroneXL, with the rest paid in Axon common stock. The stock Axon can issue is capped at 19.99% of its shares outstanding before the first closing, with any excess paid in cash; in the tender and secondary purchases, stock paid to preferred holders is capped at 60% of the price and common holders are paid entirely in cash.

New capital versus purchases from shareholders

On the 8-K’s structure, only the first tranche is newly issued capital for Skydio. DroneXL (Haye Kesteloo, 6 November) reads it the same way and puts the remainder at about $945 million by its own arithmetic. Resilience Media (Carly Page, 6 November) reported that Skydio chief executive Adam Bry wrote in a LinkedIn post that Skydio did not need to raise additional capital and that most of the investment is intended to provide liquidity for existing shareholders and employees; Lens did not read the post. Resilience Media also reported that both companies considered a full acquisition and decided to remain independent. The release does not give a split of new and secondary money.

What Axon and Skydio said

Rick Smith, Axon’s founder and chief executive, said in the release: “Within a decade, millions of drones will be working across America.” Bry said: “We’re excited to deepen that partnership with Axon becoming our exclusive channel for U.S. and Canadian public safety.” According to DroneXL’s account of Axon’s analyst call, Smith was asked whether the deal is a path to full ownership and answered: “We’ll see what the future holds.” In April 2026, announcing Skydio’s Series F, Bry had written: “The most significant fact in our Series F is how little we are raising.”

Company claims

The following figures come from Axon’s release and have not been independently verified. Axon says Skydio has more than 1,500 public safety customers and more than 4,000 agencies and organizations overall; that more than 28 million Americans live within two miles of a Skydio drone-as-first-responder (DFR) dock; that agencies using Skydio’s DFR have cut priority response times “by as much as 65%”; and that drones arrive before officers on roughly 80% of deployed calls. Axon estimates the US and Canada DFR market at about $13 billion, and says Skydio expects roughly $1 billion in total bookings in its current fiscal year; bookings are not revenue. Police1 (Sarah Roebuck, 9 November) noted that Axon did not disclose how the figures were measured or which agencies they cover.

Axon’s results and financing

DroneXL reported that Axon priced $1.15 billion of zero-coupon convertible notes due 2031 on 15 September 2026 and that chief financial officer Brittany Bagley said the proceeds would fund part of the Skydio investment; Lens did not read the original. According to Finsee’s summary of Axon’s third-quarter results and DroneXL, Axon reported revenue of $909 million, up 28%, and cut its 2026 revenue outlook to $3.61–$3.63 billion, citing about $130 million of federal Dedrone revenue it no longer expects in 2026. DroneXL noted that the figures cited on the call did not fully reconcile, and reported that Axon shares traded near $314 on 6 November after closing at $382.56 the day before.

Skydio’s earlier funding

Skydio announced a $110 million Series F at a $4.4 billion post-money valuation on 23 April 2026, according to its blog and DroneXL. In November 2024 it extended its Series E by more than $170 million, with KDDI and Axon as co-lead investors, according to a blog post by Bry; Axon was already an investor, and the size of its earlier stake is not disclosed in the sources Lens read. Reports of Skydio’s total funding before this deal differ: about $672 million (DroneXL, April 2026), about $951 million (Tectonic Defense, April 2026) and $2.1 billion (a Dealroom panel, 5 November).

Sources and notes

Sources: Axon’s press release (Exhibit 99.1), Form 8-K and the Series G purchase agreement (Exhibit 10.1) on sec.gov, dated 5 November 2026, read through summaries; the PR Newswire copy on Finviz; DroneXL (Haye Kesteloo, 6 November and earlier articles), DroneDJ (Ishveena Singh, 6 November), Police1 (Sarah Roebuck, 9 November), The Robot Report (10 November), Resilience Media (Carly Page, 6 November), Dealroom (5 November), Finsee’s summary of Axon’s third-quarter results, Skydio’s blog posts of 15 November 2024 and 23 April 2026, and TechCrunch (15 November 2024). Lens did not read Axon’s shareholder letter, its 10-Q note on the transaction, or Bry’s LinkedIn post, and found no statement on Skydio’s own site; Benzinga and Security Systems News were blocked. The terms and length of the exclusivity arrangement are not in the 8-K as Lens read it, which says some schedules are omitted and some portions redacted. Sources differ on the stake: Axon’s release says about 20% is added, the 8-K digest and DroneXL say about 15% rising to about 37%, and The Robot Report says Axon gains 20%. Resilience Media also says Skydio becomes the exclusive drone supplier to Axon in those markets, which is not in the release text Lens read. Skydio’s headquarters is given as San Mateo (The Robot Report) and Hayward, California (DroneXL; Skydio’s blog). The November 2024 valuation is $2.2 billion in TechCrunch and $2.5 billion in Tectonic Defense.

Image: A black quadcopter drone in flight against a blue sky, 2020. Photo: Project Kei, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons; cropped. Stand-in image of a generic consumer quadcopter; it does not show a Skydio aircraft.