AI Drone Software Stock Jumps 700% in Best IPO Since Newsmax
Swarmer Inc. shares skyrocketed as much as 700% on Tuesday, making the artificial intelligence drone software company’s debut the best trading by a US stock since Newsmax Inc.’s blockbuster entry nearly a year ago. Shares of the Austin, Texas-based firm closed up 520% at $31 on Tuesday. The surge triggered multiple volatility-based trading halts, including one less than a minute after the stock opened and initially dropped more than 10%. Most Read from Bloomberg Swarmer sold 3 million shares for $5 each, which at the time valued the company at just over $60 million. The trading gave the company a market value of over $380 million, based on the outstanding shares listed in a US Securities and Exchange Commission filing. The company generated just $309,920 in revenue for the year ended December 31, 2025, a roughly 6% decline from the same period a year earlier. Its profitability also worsened over that stretch, with the company reporting a loss of about $8.5 million, more than four times larger than its net loss in 2024. Swarmer is a software company, and not a drone manufacturer. Drones powered by the company’s artificial intelligence technology enables them to deploy and coordinate drone swarms, like a bird flock, at scale. Its platform has been deployed in Ukraine with more than 100,000 real-world missions in active combat environment, since April 2024, according to it regulatory filing. Swarmer’s opening-day rally comes as investors are weighing their bets on defense spending, as the industry is seeing an emergence of software-driven, autonomous, unmanned systems, reflecting a broader move in modern warfare toward low-cost weapons. US defense stocks are off to a strong start in 2026, extending last year’s stellar performance as geopolitical tensions ramp up and military spending rises globally. A report from the Wall Street Journal on Tuesday said the US Defense Department wants to mass produce a kamikaze drone the military recently used to strike Iran. The news sent shares of drone maker AeroVironment Inc. up as much as 5.1%. (Updates stock move in second paragraph, adds background and context in fifth through seventh.) Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek ©2026 Bloomberg L.P.
