Neoprimes Lead US$13.9 Billion in Defense Robotics Investment, Rewiring Supply Chains

ABI Research’s Robotics Investment Monitor 2026 YTD (PT-4083) counts US$34.1 billion across 223 in-scope funding rounds through late September. Defense and security firms raised US$13.9 billion of that total across 42 rounds, more than twice the US$5.6 billion raised by firms focused on generalist humanoid development, the next-largest silo. The four largest rounds of the year all went to defense: Anduril (US$5 billion), Shield AI (US$2 billion), Helsing (US$1.8 billion), and Saronic (US$1.75 billion), with Quantum Systems (US$1.2 billion) trailing close behind. These companies are what the industry has begun to call neoprimes: large, venture-backed defense contractors that build autonomous aircraft, ground vehicles, and marine vessels on software-first architectures, and now compete for production programs once reserved only for Lockheed Martin, RTX, and General Dynamics.

The share of robotics capital moving toward defense and security Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs), especially those developing Artificial Intelligence (AI)-assisted systems, has grown significantly in recent years. It rose from 16% of tracked robotics investment in 2023 to 26% in 2024, before inflating to 42% in 2025; that proportion is projected to rise again by year’s end. Unit volumes are moving in tandem: ABI Research estimates 7.7 million drone shipments for military applications in 2025, set to rise to a robust 30.6 million by 2035, carried throughout by attritable platforms.  Ukraine alone manufactured at least 4 million units in 2025, many of them Three-Dimensional (3D) printed; most are First-Person View (FPV) airframes flown just once, created en masse to support the attritable fleet needed for contested environments in Eastern Europe.

Ukraine has turned attritable mass—systems made cheap enough to lose in large numbers—into a central procurement category. Inexpensive drones operating in contested, jammed airspace have repeatedly destroyed or pinned down assets worth orders of magnitude more, convincing governments across the world to shift their defense purchasing models. In the United States, for example, the Pentagon’s Drone Dominance program intends to buy 340,000 small drones by January 2028 via fixed-price orders awarded after live testing, with Department of War disclosures projecting unit prices will fall from roughly US$5,000 to US$2,300.

Washington, D.C. is simultaneously working to remove Chinese components from Western robotics supply chains. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has moved from blocking new foreign-made drones in December 2025, to restricting Chinese humanoids, quadrupeds, and Autonomous Mobile Robots (AMRs), to barring Chinese logic-bearing components inside U.S.-assembled drones from October 13 onward. China, however, still holds significant leverage over rare earth materials, producing 94% of the world’s supply. Capital is flowing to companies that can close that gap, from airframe makers qualifying for the Pentagon’s Blue Unmanned Aerial System (UAS) list to magnet producers such as Vulcan Elements, which raised more than US$430 million this year.

In Europe, rearmament is accelerating as confidence in U.S. security guarantees erodes. NATO allies such as Germany and France have committed to spend 5% of their Gross Domestic Product (GDP) on defense by 2035, and the European Union’s (EU) €150 billion Security Action for Europe (SAFE) loan instrument names small drones as a priority procurement category. European buyers increasingly want suppliers they control, clarifying why Helsing reinforces that it is majority European-owned even after having raised US$1.8 billion in a round led by U.S. investors.

All these pressures converge on the component layer, which is where defense investment matters most for adjacent robotics categories. Military volume will now play a dominant role in setting the cost curve for the motors, magnets, battery cells, and edge compute that AMR, field robot, and humanoid OEMs also purchase. Larger production runs should lower unit prices, but in a shortage, expect defense needs to be satisfied first. Defense budgets are rising, though they are subject to volatility: US$53.6 billion of the Defense Autonomous Warfare Group’s (DAWG) US$54.6 billion Fiscal Year (FY) 2027 request, up from US$226 million, depends on a reconciliation bill that has garnered criticism and faced stall in U.S. Congressional discussions.

Defense can no longer be treated as a side vertical in robotics planning. Vendors that design a single product line to serve both a defense and a commercial buyer can spread engineering costs across two markets, while those that ignore defense face insularity in the market.

• Cutting Costs Is of Higher Priority than Refinement: At a Drone Dominance target of US$2,300 per unit, cost plays a larger factor in determining a Bill of Materials (BOM) before capability or refinement does, especially in the UAS market. Low-cost, provenance-documented compute, radio, and sensing modules that qualify for the Blue UAS list will win designs in defense drones. The prevalence of 3D-printed airframes, which were at one point almost exclusive to the consumer/hobbyist drone market and gained traction as a defense form factor in Ukraine, is an example of this.
• Importance of Data Sovereignty: Autonomy models improve on flight and field data that most governments will not let outside of national hands, and European buyers have shown that they place financial value on local ownership. Cloud, simulation, and autonomy providers that can offer accredited U.S. government and EU-sovereign environments will capture training workloads that others cannot access. Microsoft’s 2025 divestment of the U.S. Army’s Integrated Visual Augmentation System (IVAS) to Anduril shows an emerging division of labor with the hyperscaler running the infrastructure, and the neoprime designing the product itself.
• Ground Robotics Is Entering Defense via Logistics: Militaries are adopting Autonomous Ground Robots (AGVs) for resupply, casualty evacuation, and surveillance well ahead of combat, replacing logistics work at a time when military personnel is a scarce resource. The U.S. Army, for example, cancelled its armed AGV program but is developing a second increment of the Small Multipurpose Equipment Transport (S-MET), a robotic mule that carries soldiers’ loads. OEMs of outdoor AMRs and field robots already sell much of what these programs need, including rough terrain navigation and fleet orchestration, making military logistics a realistic route to entry.
• Sourcing Deadlines Looming: Component suppliers should qualify their sources of rare earth metals, such as MP Materials and Lynas, ahead of the Pentagon’s 2027 sourcing deadline, which will ban Chinese supply of materials essential to magnet manufacturing. Western suppliers of actuators and other components are positioned to see bolstered demand in 2027 and beyond.

The implication for robotics vendors is clear: defense is now a structural force in the market, alongside humanoid development, software, and industrial applications. As neoprime defense firms absorb capital and governments channel spending into attritable, sovereign, and rapidly scalable systems, the supply chain advantages created in defense will color adjacent markets. Companies that align early with defense-grade cost structures, sourcing practices, and deployment models will be better positioned not only to win military business, but to compete across the next generation of commercial robotics as well.