Eleven of the 50 companies in the Israeli Defence-AI Deployment Index are counter-UAS suppliers. That is 22 per cent of the field in a single category, more than half again as many as the next-largest groups, and the entries are spread across all four grades. The counter-UAS market Israel picture that emerges from the index is a dense field with one reported operational deployment, five publicly announced contracts, one company at trial stage, and four whose defence application no independent public source corroborates.
The arithmetic
Counter-UAS: 11 entries. ISR and sensor fusion: seven. Autonomous air systems: seven. Autonomous ground and maritime: six. Simulation and training: five. C2 and decision support: four. Military cyber: three. Electronic warfare and SIGINT: two. Space and satellite ISR: two. Active protection, targeting and fire control, and military logistics and sustainment: one each.
Within counter-UAS the grades fall as follows.
| Grade | Companies | Count |
|---|---|---|
| L3 · Operational | Robotican | 1 |
| L2 · Contract | Airobotics / Iron Drone Raider (Ondas), Autonomous Guard, D-Fend Solutions, Magos Systems, Sentrycs | 5 |
| L1 · Trial | Althimis | 1 |
| L0 · Claimed | AeroNous Solutions, Cogniteam, Insight Intelligent Sensors, Skapion | 4 |
Set that against the index-wide distribution of 26 per cent L3, 44 per cent L2, 12 per cent L1 and 18 per cent L0. Counter-UAS runs at nine per cent L3 and 36 per cent L0. It is under-represented at the top of the grading scale and twice as heavily represented at the bottom as the index average.
The sharper number is this: four of the nine companies in the entire L0 band are counter-UAS suppliers. One category out of twelve supplies 44 per cent of the index's least-evidenced tier.
What the public record shows in this category
- Robotican, the sole L3 entry, is sourced to a NoCamels report from January 2024 describing combat drones that catch prey in mid-air and underground.
- Magos Systems is sourced to The Times of Israel, which reported the radar and AI startup clinching a deal for a drone attack warning system for the Israeli army.
- D-Fend Solutions is sourced to Unmanned Systems Technology, whose feature describes EnforceAir2 deployed by the US Army during Combined Resolve 25-02. The index reads exercise use as short of operations, which places the entry at L2 rather than L3.
- Sentrycs is sourced to a company press release announcing multimillion-dollar deals to protect military bases in Europe. The customer is not named.
- Airobotics / Iron Drone Raider is sourced to an Ondas investor relations release announcing a $3.4 million order.
- Autonomous Guard, which trades on the Tel Aviv exchange, is sourced to The Defense Post in March 2026.
- Althimis, founded 2023, is sourced to The Defense Post in July 2026 and sits at L1.
- AeroNous Solutions is sourced to an Innoviz investor release announcing a lidar partnership. Insight Intelligent Sensors is sourced to an Ondas release on expanded AI sensing. Cogniteam is sourced to The Jerusalem Post. Skapion is sourced to Israel Defense. None of the four has an independent public source describing a defence deployment.
Each entry and its link is set out in the Israeli counter-UAS companies pillar.
Why the category is crowded
Demand is documented and it is not confined to Israel. NATO announced in July 2026 that Allies would invest more than $40 billion in counter-drone capabilities over five years and would establish a counter-drone marketplace for tested and compatible systems. MarketsandMarkets, a commercial forecaster, projects the European anti-drone market rising from $1.24 billion in 2025 to $4.16 billion by 2030. Those are a political commitment and a vendor-facing forecast respectively, and neither is a measurement of what has been bought.
The supply side is unusually accessible. Counter-UAS covers detection, tracking, identification and defeat, and a company can enter at any one of those functions with a radar, an RF sensor, a computer-vision model or an interceptor airframe rather than a full system. The vocabulary matters for reading vendor claims and is set out in detect, track, defeat.
That accessibility is a plausible explanation for the shape of the grade distribution. Where entry is cheap, more companies announce a defence application than can show a customer, and the L0 band fills up.
What the crowding means for a buyer
Three practical readings follow from the arithmetic, none of them about product quality.
First, the modal counter-UAS entry in this index has a contract and no published operational account. Five of eleven sit there. An L2 grade establishes that someone announced a purchase; it establishes nothing about performance against any particular threat.
Second, four of the five L2 sources are company-issued or investor-relations material rather than independent reporting. Magos is the exception, sourced to The Times of Israel. That does not make the other four false — an investor release is a regulated disclosure — but it does mean the customer, quantity and configuration are usually absent. The contracted subset is listed in Israeli counter-drone companies with publicly announced contracts.
Third, in a category of eleven, grade differences are the cheapest available discriminator between suppliers who otherwise present similarly. What specifically moves an entry between bands is set out in what moves a company from L0 to L3.
Limits of this reading
Category assignment is the index's own, and several of these companies would describe themselves differently. Magos sells radar. Cogniteam sells robotics autonomy software. Insight Intelligent Sensors is presented in its source as an AI sensing business. Placing them in counter-UAS reflects the application their public sourcing describes, and a different editor would draw the boundary elsewhere and get a different count.
The index is 50 companies out of several hundred in the Israeli sector, weighted toward firms with English-language coverage. Counter-UAS may be over-represented in the index partly because it is the category with the most English-language trade press. The wider pattern, and what it does and does not support, is set out in the deployment evidence gap and in the full index.
Frequently asked questions
How many Israeli counter-drone companies are in the deployment index?
Eleven of the 50 entries are counter-UAS suppliers, making it the largest category in the index at 22 per cent of the field. They break down as one at L3, five at L2, one at L1 and four at L0.
Which Israeli counter-UAS company has documented operational use?
Robotican is the only counter-UAS entry graded L3. Its index source is a NoCamels report from January 2024. The other ten entries rest on contract announcements, a trial report or company claims without independent corroboration.
Why do so many counter-UAS companies sit at L0?
Four of the index's nine L0 companies are counter-UAS. Their sources are partnership announcements, investor releases or general press coverage rather than an independent account of a defence deployment. The grade records missing evidence, not a judgement on the product.
Sources
- idf.ai, The Israeli Defense-AI Deployment Index v1.0, 24 August 2026
- NoCamels, Combat drones that catch prey in mid-air and underground, January 2024
- The Times of Israel, Radar tech AI startup clinches deal for drone attack warning system to Israeli army
- Unmanned Systems Technology, D-Fend Solutions EnforceAir2 deployed by U.S. Army during Combined Resolve 25-02
- NATO, Allies invest 40 billion dollars in counter-drone capabilities and drone training, 7 July 2026
- MarketsandMarkets, Europe anti-drone market report 2025–2030
- Ondas Holdings investor relations, Ondas secures $3.4 million order for Iron Drone Raider
Independent publication of idf.ai. Not affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected to the Israel Defense Forces, the Israeli Ministry of Defense, or any government body. Compiled entirely from publicly published sources. No classified, restricted or non-public information. Listed companies may dispute any entry: send the published source that contradicts it and the entry will be amended or removed.