Echodyne profile
Echodyne is a privately held American radar manufacturer based in Kirkland, Washington, that develops metamaterials-based electronically scanned array radars for counter-drone defense, perimeter security, and autonomous systems.
What Echodyne does
Echodyne Manufactures and sells compact metamaterials electronically scanned array radar systems, including the EchoShield product line, for drone detection, counter-drone defense, and autonomous machines. Supplies hardware directly to defense integrators such as Norway's Kongsberg, which incorporates Echodyne MESA radar technology into Protector RS4 and Protector RS6 remote weapon stations. Operates an 86,350-square-foot manufacturing plant in Washington state with a projected capacity of more than 30,000 radars annually, backed by approximately $198.7 million in private investment from backers including Bill Gates, NEA, Madrona Venture Group, Baillie Gifford, and Northrop Grumman. Echodyne has not disclosed individual contract values, unit pricing, or annual revenue totals, as the business remains privately held.
The product lines that define the company for research purposes:
- MESA radar platform
- EchoShield radar
- Kongsberg Protector RS4 and RS6 integration
This profile is qualitative by design. It carries no share price, no price target, no valuation multiple, and no rating — those change faster than any page can honestly track, and the filings linked below are the authoritative source for them.
Echodyne drone lineup
The current public product record does not identify a complete aircraft lineup.
No complete-aircraft offering is catalogued for this company; it is tracked here as an unmanned-systems enabler.
Statuses are editorial classifications from the company’s current public catalog: active means currently presented for sale, delivery, or program work; development means publicly disclosed but not a mature production offering; legacy means retained for historical or installed-fleet coverage.
Recent contracts & awards
A dated log of the specific contracts, orders, funding, and deployments reported for Echodyne, each tied to its primary source. This is a record of what was announced — a "selection", "award", or "partnership" is not the same as obligated money, so read each source before treating a figure as revenue. No figure appears here unless a source reported it.
- Echodyne evaluates European manufacturing options to meet counter-drone radar demand
On September 10, 2026, at the MSPO defense show in Kielce, Poland, Echodyne CEO Eben Frankenberg stated that Echodyne is considering establishing a manufacturing presence in Europe to address regional counter-drone demand and European interest in local content. This evaluation is an exploratory review rather than a signed facility contract, as Echodyne has not announced a specific European location, timeline, or investment total. Researchers should verify future corporate announcements to confirm whether Echodyne formally commits to a European site before treating overseas manufacturing as an active capability.
Defense News: US radar maker Echodyne mulls European production as drone warfare fuels demand
Where Echodyne sits in the value chain
Echodyne is an enabler: it supplies inputs to the companies that build complete systems, so its demand is spread across many platforms instead of concentrated in any single program.
Its disclosed activity spans ground robotics, counter-UAS. That placement is the single most useful thing to fix in your head before reading any coverage, because the same headline means different things at different layers: a large platform award is transformative for a pure-play, material but diluted for a diversified contractor, and only indirectly relevant to a component supplier whose exposure arrives later as build-rate demand. Retail coverage routinely applies one story to all three layers at once. For the layer-by-layer comparison across the sector, see the drone stocks research shortlist and the list of publicly traded drone companies.
What to watch
The signals worth tracking are structural, not price-based — they tell you whether the business is changing shape, which is what eventually shows up in the numbers.
- Whether Echodyne's evaluation of European manufacturing options leads to a formal site selection, partner agreement, or capital expenditure commitment.
- Production scale-up at the 86,350-square-foot Washington state plant toward its projected annual capacity of more than 30,000 radar units.
- Expansion of Echodyne MESA radar integrations into additional remote weapon station lines or defense vehicle programs beyond Kongsberg's Protector RS4 and RS6.
- Any future disclosure of direct defense contract awards or financial results, which remain private under Echodyne's current venture-backed ownership structure.
How to research Echodyne
Every question below has one authoritative source, and using the wrong source is how most retail research goes wrong.
| Research question | Where the answer lives | What to look for |
|---|---|---|
| Is there anything to buy? | SEC EDGAR full-text search | Whether any registration statement exists at all — absent one, there is no public security. |
| Is the government work real? | Official DoD contract announcements | Awarding service and scope of work, rather than a company-issued announcement. |
| What is the acquisition pathway? | DIU and DARPA program pages | Whether the work runs through non-traditional agreements or a conventional program of record. |
| How would exposure even work? | Fund holdings disclosures | Whether any listed vehicle discloses a stake — indirect exposure is usually thin and unstated. |
- For reporting on European expansion plans and Washington manufacturing capacity, read the Defense News coverage of Echodyne's European production evaluation.
- To review specifications for EchoShield and MESA radar hardware, consult Echodyne's official website directly.
- For integration details regarding the Protector RS4 and RS6 remote weapon stations, check Kongsberg Defence & Aerospace product documentation.
- Because Echodyne is privately held and does not file public reports with the SEC, track corporate milestones and funding announcements through Echodyne's newsroom.
One failure mode is worth naming explicitly: a company announcement describing a "selection", "award", or "partnership" is not the same as obligated money, and the two are easy to conflate because they use the same vocabulary. Check the official record before treating either as revenue. Our full approach is documented on the methodology page.
Echodyne FAQ
What does Echodyne do?
Echodyne Manufactures and sells compact metamaterials electronically scanned array radar systems, including the EchoShield product line, for drone detection, counter-drone defense, and autonomous machines.
Is Echodyne publicly traded?
Echodyne is not publicly traded, so there is no ticker to buy. Any claim otherwise should be verified against SEC EDGAR before it is believed.
What should investors watch with Echodyne?
Whether Echodyne's evaluation of European manufacturing options leads to a formal site selection, partner agreement, or capital expenditure commitment.
Where can I research Echodyne directly?
Go to the primary sources: Echodyne official site, Defense News: US radar maker Echodyne mulls European production as drone warfare fuels demand. Avoid aggregator summaries when the filing itself is available.
Related coverage
- Company directory
- Drone stocks hub
- Defense stocks hub
- Military drone stocks
- How to buy drone stocks
- Defense and drone ETFs