AI-powered drone startup Citadel Defense expands to support production of up to 50 systems a month as drone attacks escalate

We wrote about Citadel Defense earlier this month when the AI-powered drone startup raised $9.2M contract to take down hostile drones. Citadel Defense continues to experience rapid growth after being awarded several significant Defense and Homeland Security contracts for its C-UAS (counter unmanned aircraft systems) solutions. The growth is a direct result of delivering reliable and effective force protection against individual drones and swarms for military, government, and international customers over the past two years.

To address the surge in global demand for Titan systems, Citadel has expanded their manufacturing capabilities in San Diego, CA to support production of up to 50 Titan systems a month. The company uses U.S. suppliers with over 70% of components being sourced locally in Southern California in order to improve responsiveness when executing on urgent customer requests.

Founded in 2016 by Daniel Magy, Henrik Borgstrom, and Joseph Makol, the San Diego, California-based Citadel develops an automated and modular drone defense solution that uses proprietary machine learning algorithms to detect and engage unwanted drones. Citadel Defense is a counter-drone (C-UAS) technology company that builds industry-leading drone mitigation solutions for military, homeland security and commercial applications. Citadel technology is trusted by commercial, Government, and military users including, U.S. Special Forces, Army, Navy, Air Force, Department of Homeland Security, Border Patrol, and Coast Guard.

“Designing agility into our product development process from the beginning has allowed us to move at the speed of the threat. Rapidly deploying new, innovative, C-UAS capabilities that keep personnel, high-value assets, and intellectual property safe from unwanted drones has never been more important,” says Christopher Williams, CEO of Citadel Defense.

Titan C-UAS systems are deployed globally, protecting combat forces, civilians, and critical infrastructure. As radiofrequency-based solutions become an important requirement for layered C-UAS solutions, Citadel has had their capabilities extensively evaluated by U.S. Army, Navy, Air Force, SOCOM, and DHS Test & Evaluation teams.

“Designing our system to meet the needs of dynamic and unpredictable needs a real-world threat environment has been an important differentiator for our company,” explained Williams. “We use artificial intelligence to detect and defeat the broadest range of UAS threat scenarios in order to bring the most effective Force Protection to our customers.”

Malicious drone activity, ranging from single-use hostile small unmanned aerial systems to drone swarms continue to threaten safety and national security. Over the past 18 months alone, Citadel has received orders for over $17.5 million in products and services to support anti-drone initiatives around the world.