AeroVironment, Inc. (AVAV) finalized its acquisition of BlueHalo yesterday in a $4.1B stock transaction to form a new defense tech company, called AV, that will be able to build tech across all warfighting domains—air, land, sea, space, and cyber.
The deal adds David Wodlinger and Henry Albers from BlueHalo’s majority investor Arlington Capital Partners—now AV’s largest shareholder—to the combined company’s board.
Higher and higher: As warfare becomes increasingly dependent on space-based infrastructure and the link between space capabilities and terrestrial systems, AV aims to use its technologies to connect military tech in different domains.
“Our ability to play in that [space] market was very limited,” AV CEO Wahid Nawabi told Payload. Nawabi described BlueHalo as “the leading edge when it comes to directed energy, comms, and the next generation of communication for all sorts of space systems and satellites—whether it’s LEO, MEO, or GEO.”
AV will share its production expertise to help scale the manufacturing of former BlueHalo products. The company also plans to explore linking BlueHalo’s hybrid RF and laser comms tech with AeroVironment’s drones, stratospheric aircraft, and loitering munitions systems.
Golden Dome? While the deal originated before the days of Golden Dome, AV sees the Trump administration missile defense initiative as the perfect opportunity to demonstrate its technologies.
“If I took a use case of a laser communication payload, or one of our telemetry payloads, and put that on the airborne platforms that we have as a unified company, we have an architecture that you can proliferate for Golden Dome,” explained Mary Clum, AV’s Executive VP of space and directed energy mission systems. “That’s a whole new market [where] we’re going to be able to offer an integrated solution.”
Long-distance calling: The acquisition opens the door for the products originated with BlueHalo to reach more customers worldwide. While BlueHalo focused on US defense contracts, 40% of AeroVironment’s customer base was located outside of the country, according to Nawabi.
Update: This story was updated to reflect Mary Clum’s title at newly formed AV.
