My #1 Tech IPO

In 45 years of watching markets, I’ve learned one reliable truth: The biggest investment opportunities don’t announce themselves loudly. They hide in plain sight, disguised as niche technology stories – until the day they explode into the mainstream.

That’s exactly what’s happening right now with autonomous drone software.

Now, drones really caught my attention in the summer of 2025…

That’s when a Ukrainian infantry unit launched an assault on a Russian bunker in the Kharkiv region.

But here’s the remarkable thing…

Not a single Ukrainian soldier set foot on that ground. Machines led the charge instead.

Drones flew overhead. Small robotic ground vehicles rolled toward the bunker entrance. The robots breached it.

Then something happened that had never occurred in the entire history of warfare.

The Russian soldiers held up a cardboard sign that read “We want to surrender.” They laid down their weapons – in front of robots.

Ukraine’s Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov has since stated his explicit goal: 100% of frontline logistics will eventually be handled by robotic systems.

The country is already on pace to field 25,000 unmanned ground vehicles in the first half of 2026 alone, according to Defense News.

In the air, the numbers are even more staggering…

Ukraine is on track to produce 5 million to 7 million drones in 2026, a figure that would have seemed like science fiction just three years ago.

And the United States government has taken notice in a very big way.

The $54.6 Billion Signal

When I was an economic analyst at the CIA, I learned a discipline that has served me well on Wall Street: Never trust the headline number.

The real story is always in the footnotes, the appendices, the line items that most reporters never read.

So when President Trump released the largest defense budget request in American history – $1.5 trillion for fiscal year 2027 – I did what I was trained to do. I went to Page 103.

What I found there is going to reshape the defense industry for a decade, and it creates one of the most compelling investment opportunities I’ve seen in my career.

Buried inside that budget is a Pentagon program called the Defense Autonomous Warfare Group – DAWG.

In fiscal year 2026, DAWG received $225.9 million. In the budget request for 2027, that line item jumps to $54.6 billion – a 24,000% increase.

Pentagon officials confirmed this figure publicly in April 2026. Bloomberg called it “the largest single year-over-year boost of any defense program or office in modern history.”

I’ve been following defense budgets for decades. I’ve never seen anything like this.

To put it in perspective, the DAWG budget alone is now larger than the entire annual budget of the United States Marine Corps.

When I see this much money pointed at a single category, I go looking for the companies best positioned to take advantage. And I’ve found a company that sits at the very center of this shift…

Proven in Battle

Swarmer Inc. (Nasdaq: SWMR) went public on March 17, 2026, priced at $5 per share.

Most new IPOs arrive on the market as promises…

Slick presentations. PowerPoint decks. The company has an idea that might work, someday, in the real world.

Swarmer was different. This company was born on the battlefield.

Founded in May 2023 by Serhii Kupriienko and Alex Fink, Swarmer emerged directly from a wartime problem: Ukrainian forces could build drones far faster than they could train operators to fly them.

Their solution was AI-powered swarm autonomy software. Simply put, it allows one trained operator to coordinate and control dozens of drones simultaneously.

The software entered combat operations in April 2024. Since then, it has supported more than 100,000 real-world missions. Nearly 50 military units have used the software – under active electronic warfare and GPS-denied conditions.

Read that again: 100,000 real combat missions. Not simulations. Not lab tests. Real operations in one of the most complex electronic warfare environments on Earth.

“I am excited to be a part of Swarmer because it is proven combat technology developed truly on the edge of battle.” – Erik Prince, Swarmer Chairman

Better yet, like every good AI, Swarmer’s software learns how to improve.

Every one of those missions feeds new data back into Swarmer’s AI, making it sharper with each flight.

Three Software Platforms, One Mission

Swarmer’s platform is not a single product. It is a stack of three software systems, each built for a different layer of autonomous warfare:

STYX handles mission planning – the command-and-control layer that determines where the drones go and what they do.

MINAS manages remote control of drone and robotics platforms, allowing one operator to coordinate multiple units in real time.

TRIDENT is the embedded autonomy layer – the onboard AI that allows each drone to navigate, adapt, and continue operating even when GPS is jammed and communications are degraded.

Together, these three systems have allowed a single operator to control up to 25 drones simultaneously, giving each allied soldier a 25-to-1 advantage in the air.

The company’s next phase, already underway, extends this capability to unmanned ground and maritime systems. (These are the same robots that are replacing frontline soldiers in Ukraine today.)

Importantly, Swarmer does not manufacture drones. It is a pure software company. That distinction matters enormously for investors, because it can grow without the cost and complexity of running a factory.

As CEO Alex Fink put it, “We are definitely choosing the Microsoft model.”

Just as Microsoft sells Windows to every computer maker, Swarmer licenses its software to every drone manufacturer.

Competitors like Anduril and Shield AI take the opposite approach – their software only runs on drones they build themselves. Swarmer works with any drone maker.

The business model is a per-drone licensing fee ranging from $250 to $30,000 depending on platform complexity. As drone volumes scale globally – and they are scaling rapidly – Swarmer’s revenue scales with them.

The People Behind the Company

When I evaluate any early-stage company, I don’t just review its products. I spend as much time on who is behind it as on the technology itself.

In 45 years of investing, I’ve found that the people make or break a business more often than the product.

Two names stand out here…

The first is Eric Schmidt, the former CEO of Google who turned it into one of the most valuable companies ever built. Before Swarmer went public, Schmidt’s venture fund – D3 Ventures – was one of its first big-name backers.

When the man who built Google bets early on a small defense-tech IPO, I pay attention. Money like that doesn’t move without serious research.

The second is Erik Prince, who serves as Swarmer’s non-executive chairman. Prince founded Blackwater – once the largest private military contractor in the world – and spent nearly 30 years at the top levels of global defense.

He has never before agreed to chair a U.S.-listed public company. Not once in his career. He chose Swarmer as his first.

On the morning SWMR began trading, Prince told Fox Business, “The Department of War has been asleep for dozens of years and allowed a very cartel-like defense industry to sell massively overpriced stuff.”

He believes Swarmer is the company that will disrupt that cartel.

In his letter to prospective shareholders in the S-1 filing, Prince wrote that Swarmer’s platform represents “proven combat technology developed truly on the edge of battle.”

The Numbers – and What Wall Street Hasn’t Priced In Yet

It’s important to keep in mind that Swarmer is an early-stage company.

Revenue for 2025 was approximately $310,000. The balance sheet shows roughly $9 million to $25 million in cash following the IPO.

But that’s enough runway to execute its growth plan. And it benefits from minimal long-term debt.

Plus, the gap between what Swarmer is earning today and what it is contracted to earn is one of the largest I’ve seen in a new public company.

According to Swarmer’s S-1 filing, the company holds $16.3 million in signed contracts. That’s committed revenue from signed software licenses and delivery contracts, due to be recognized over the next 12 to 24 months.

On top of that, the company reported an additional $16.8 million in memoranda of understanding with existing customers.

That’s $33.1 million in expected revenue in the pipeline. About 60% of that is projected to hit in 2026, with the balance being recognized by early 2028.

Consider the scale of that shift.

Swarmer’s 2025 revenue was $310,000. Its own projection for 2026 is $20 million.

Palantir – the best-performing S&P 500 stock of the past two years – grew revenue just 47% in its first year as a public company. Swarmer’s pipeline implies a growth rate many times that.

This is what I call “ghost revenue” – money that’s already committed and already earned, but not yet on the books. Most investors can’t see it yet.

And the pipeline is already beginning to convert.

In May 2026, Swarmer announced a contract with Meta Bureau LLC – a Kyiv-based drone manufacturer – to outfit its SkyKnight combat drones with Swarmer’s full software stack. The deal covers more than 16,000 software licenses at an initial value of $2.86 million.

If Meta Bureau exercises all available upgrade options, that figure rises to $13.2 million – from a single customer, in a single deal.

That’s the Microsoft model playing out in real time. Meta Bureau isn’t building its own autonomy software. It’s licensing Swarmer’s – the same way a PC maker licenses Windows.

CEO Serhii Kupriienko framed it plainly: “We look forward to receiving additional real-world mission data to further enhance our models and refine the software’s performance.” Every new license isn’t just revenue. It’s more battlefield data feeding back into the AI – widening the moat with every flight.

When that revenue begins flowing through the books, the market will be forced to reprice the stock. The investors who move before that repricing are the ones who capture the biggest gains.

Three Catalysts in the Next 12 Months

A great company at a great price isn’t enough. You need a reason for the rest of the market to wake up and agree with you.

In Swarmer’s case, I see three distinct catalysts coming in the next 12 months, each capable of moving this stock meaningfully on its own.

Together, they represent one of the most stacked setups I’ve encountered in my career.

Catalyst #1: The Pentagon’s New Fiscal Year. On October 1, the Pentagon’s fiscal year 2027 begins – and with it, the $54.6 billion DAWG budget starts flowing. That money is earmarked for exactly the kind of autonomous drone and robotics software that Swarmer provides.

Pentagon officials have confirmed they are already testing various autonomy and orchestration tools with live companies. There is only one company on a U.S. exchange today that has logged over 100,000 real combat missions running drone-swarm software. That’s Swarmer.

When those contracts start moving, I believe a significant portion will flow to the company with the deepest combat track record.

Catalyst #2: The NATO Procurement Wave. The current NATO arms buildup is the largest peacetime defense expansion since the Cold War. Germany, France, Britain, Poland – every member nation is urgently sourcing drone and robotics technology.

The common requirement is straightforward: They want systems with a real combat record. Not simulations. Not lab certifications. Real missions in real wars.

Swarmer has that record, and no NATO-listed competitor comes close to matching it. Multiple NATO-adjacent procurement processes are in various stages of evaluation now.

Catalyst #3: The SpaceX Ecosystem Effect. SpaceX has confidentially filed for an IPO targeting a $2 trillion valuation. When that much capital floods into a single stock, history shows it doesn’t stay there – it flows to every company in that stock’s ecosystem.

Swarmer’s connection to the SpaceX ecosystem is direct: Its drone operations run across Starlink, SpaceX’s satellite internet network. Elon Musk himself called Starlink “the backbone of the Ukrainian military.”

The drones fly on Starlink. The AI swarm coordinates on Starlink. Every Swarmer mission runs on the SpaceX network. When investor attention turns to SpaceX and its ecosystem, Swarmer will be on that list.

What You Should Know Before You Buy

Like all investments, this one will not be without risk.

As I mentioned before, Swarmer is an early-stage company. Revenue is tiny relative to the current valuation implied by recent trading prices.

And the stock has shown sharp volatility since its IPO. It traded as high as $68 and as low as the $30s in its first weeks of trading.

Not all investors can handle swings of that magnitude.

It’s also worth noting that the revenue projections in this report depend on contract milestones and government funding – both of which can slip. The DAWG budget has been requested but not yet passed by Congress. And if active conflicts wind down, some of the urgency behind drone procurement eases with them.

That said, the big picture here is clear.

The U.S. military, NATO, and allied governments have all made drone warfare a top priority – one that won’t change with a single budget cycle.

The technology Swarmer has built is real and hard to copy. The 100,000-mission combat record can’t be faked.

The software business model is lean and grows as drone volumes grow. And the people running this company and backing it are among the best-connected in the defense world.

The odds favor investors who move before October – when the DAWG contracts start flowing  and Wall Street finally catches on to the opportunity.

Recommendation: Buy Swarmer (Nasdaq: SWMR) at market, and use our customary 25% trailing stop to protect your principal and your profits.