The results for H1 2026, published on Tuesday, reinforce its growth strategy. AeroVironment is expected to achieve $2bn in revenue this year and at least $300m in operating profit before investments (EBITDA).
This will be a major step forward for the Virginia-based group, which posted revenue of $821m and EBITDA of $146m in FY 2025.
AeroVironment's business portfolio, which is a pioneer in drones and remote-controlled systems, is ideally positioned to meet the Pentagon's new demands. The war in Ukraine has, of course, further accelerated this trend.
Other significant growth opportunities have been identified in cyber and space—two markets with much larger addressable volumes than drone systems.
It was precisely this ambition that motivated the acquisition of BlueHalo in November 2024, in a $4.1bn transaction financed entirely with AeroVironment shares, at a time when the latter's valuation was 40x EBITDA.
The transaction amount represented a multiple of 4x BlueHalo's revenue. Although these figures are not public, MarketScreener analysts also estimate that it corresponds to a multiple of 40x EBITDA.
These days, AeroVironment itself is valued at 6x its expected revenue over the next 12 months, and around 40x its EBITDA: the figures indeed match.
However, it should be noted that on five occasions over the last decade, this valuation ceiling has been immediately punished by the market, which has brought the enterprise value back down to a floor of 20x EBITDA—with several episodes where it sank to 15x EBITDA.
AeroVironment has tripled its revenue and profit before special items over the past decade. Growing rapidly since the start of the war in Ukraine, it no longer generates free cash flow, due to pressure on working capital requirements, but it is filling its order book to capacity.
The group's largest shareholder, Arlington Capital Partners, which was behind the merger between AeroVironment and BlueHalo, still controls a quarter of the capital.
