Epirus profile
Epirus is a privately held directed-energy company whose Leonidas high-power microwave systems are built to disable drone swarms.
What Epirus does
Epirus builds software-defined, high-power microwave directed-energy systems for counter-drone and counter-swarm defence, led by its Leonidas family. Instead of firing an interceptor at one target, a high-power microwave system projects directed energy that can disable the electronics of many drones at once — a "one-to-many" effect aimed squarely at the case where cheap drone swarms make kinetic interceptors uneconomical. The systems are durable, reusable, and software-upgradeable rather than expended on use, so the revenue behaves like defence hardware plus a training-and-sustainment tail, and the customer base is government (US Army, Navy, and Marine Corps) plus vehicle-integration partners. The open question for any directed-energy company is whether prototype deliveries convert into a funded program of record.
The product lines that define the company for research purposes:
- Leonidas — software-defined high-power microwave counter-swarm system (variants: Leonidas Expeditionary, Leonidas H2O maritime, Stryker Leonidas)
- IFPC-HPM — US Army Indirect Fire Protection Capability high-power-microwave program built on Leonidas
- ExDECS — Expeditionary Directed Energy Counter-Swarm system delivered to the USMC
- HAVOC — vehicle-mounted USMC high-power microwave system
- Epirus Pod — compact / portable high-power microwave system
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.
Epirus 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 Epirus, 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.
- US Marine Corps HAVOC counter-drone contract
A reported ~$11 million contract, awarded through the Office of Naval Research on behalf of the Marine Corps, to deliver HAVOC — a vehicle-mounted high-power microwave counter-swarm system on a universal sled mount, with training and sustainment and an option for an additional system. Reported as roughly triple the power of the earlier ExDECS system. The contract-vehicle type was not disclosed, so treat it as an awarded contract with options rather than a confirmed program of record.
Breaking Defense — Epirus $11M Marine Corps HAVOC contract - US Army IFPC-HPM Generation II award
A reported $43.5 million award from the Army Rapid Capabilities and Critical Technologies Office for two Generation II IFPC-HPM systems plus spares and support, extending the Leonidas-based high-power-microwave program.
Epirus / PR Newswire — $43.5M IFPC-HPM Generation II - Series D funding to scale Leonidas production
A reported $250 million Series D, co-led by 8VC and Washington Harbour Partners, to expand Leonidas production capacity. Total capital raised was reported around $540 million at the time.
Washington Technology — Epirus $250M Series D - US Army IFPC-HPM (Leonidas) award
A reported ~$66.1 million, roughly three-year contract for the Army Indirect Fire Protection Capability high-power-microwave effort built on Leonidas; four systems were reported delivered to the Army by mid-2024.
Breaking Defense — Army selects Epirus Leonidas
Is Epirus going public?
Epirus is privately held and venture-backed (founded 2017), with no ticker and no public listing. Reported rounds include a $200 million Series C in February 2022 (at a reported ~$1.35 billion valuation) and a $250 million Series D in March 2025; no post-Series-D valuation has been reliably reported. The practical way to track it is through its contract announcements and funding disclosures rather than a share price.
Where Epirus sits in the value chain
Epirus is a pure-play: unmanned systems are the business rather than one line inside it, so the P&L moves with drone demand and has little else to cushion a slow procurement year.
Its disclosed activity spans 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 IFPC-HPM and HAVOC move from prototype and other-transaction deliveries into a funded, multi-year production program of record — that transition is the difference between milestone revenue and durable backlog.
- Concentration risk: revenue is heavily US-government and centered on a single product family, so watch for customer diversification (Navy, USMC, allied, and critical-infrastructure buyers) and any international-sales approvals.
- Cash runway versus burn. Scaling hardware-heavy directed-energy production is capital-intensive; watch for a Series E, strategic investment, acquisition, or IPO signal, and any disclosed post-Series-D valuation, which has not been reported.
- Independent capability proof points — verified range, and whether HAVOC actually delivers its claimed step-up in power over ExDECS — rather than vendor performance claims, plus integration wins on additional vehicle platforms.
How to research Epirus
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 a directed-energy contractor, the awards are the story — cross-check each announced contract against the official record. The Department of Defense contract announcements name the awarding command and scope, and the Congressional Research Service IFPC reporting explains where the Army program sits.
- Distinguish a "selection" or other-transaction agreement from an obligated production contract: several Epirus milestones are prototype or OTA deliveries, which do not carry the same committed-money weight as a program of record. The Epirus newsroom is the primary source for the company's framing, and should be paired with independent defense trade coverage.
- Because Epirus is private, there are no SEC filings; funding figures come from round announcements, and no post-Series-D valuation has been credibly disclosed — do not infer one.
- The naming lineage matters when reading coverage: HAVOC is not a rename of Leonidas but a distinct USMC vehicle-mounted system in the same high-power-microwave family (Leonidas to Leonidas Expeditionary to ExDECS to HAVOC). Conflating them overstates how much is fielded.
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.
Epirus FAQ
What does Epirus do?
Epirus builds software-defined, high-power microwave directed-energy systems for counter-drone and counter-swarm defence, led by its Leonidas family.
Is Epirus publicly traded?
Epirus 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 Epirus?
Whether IFPC-HPM and HAVOC move from prototype and other-transaction deliveries into a funded, multi-year production program of record — that transition is the difference between milestone revenue and durable backlog.
Where can I research Epirus directly?
Go to the primary sources: Epirus (official site), Epirus newsroom. Avoid aggregator summaries when the filing itself is available.
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