Ukrainian miltech startup Swarmer sees its Nasdaq share price surge more than 7-fold on debut
Ukrainian startup Swarmer (ticker: SWMR), which develops artificial intelligence (AI)-based solutions for drone autonomy, debuted on the U.S. Nasdaq exchange on Tuesday, with its share price soaring more than sevenfold, from the initial public offering (IPO) price of $5 to $36.5 as of 9:00 p.m. Kyiv time.
According to exchange data, trading opened at $12.5, with the price at times reaching as high as $40 the day.
"Gross proceeds from the offering, before deducting underwriting discounts and commissions and other offering expenses payable by Swarmer, are expected to be approximately $15.0 million," the company previously said in a statement regarding its IPO of 3 million shares.
The company intends to use the net proceeds from the IPO to fund ongoing operations, including expanding capabilities and product offerings, hiring personnel, integrating with hardware from drone manufacturers, as well as for working capital and other general corporate purposes.
In addition, Swarmer granted the underwriter a 30-day option to purchase up to 450,000 additional shares at the public offering price.
The offering is expected to close on or about March 18, 2026, subject to customary closing conditions.
Lucid Capital Markets is acting as the sole bookrunner for the offering. Earlier, its fee was set at 6% of the total IPO volume.
In August 2024, Swarmer became a member of the Brave1 defense innovation cluster.
The company’s core areas of activity include autonomous swarm coordination, integration of multi-domain unmanned systems, AI-powered collaborative autonomy, and software for command and control of distributed robotic operations, according to the release.
The company’s clients also include drone manufacturers that license Swarmer’s software for integration with their hardware platforms.
In September 2025, the startup announced a $15 million Series A funding round, which it said was the largest investment in a Ukrainian defense technology company since the start of the war.
At that time, the company reported successfully demonstrating swarms of 25 drones operating together in GNSS-denied environments. In the near future, it plans to demonstrate operations involving various types of weapons, with more than 100 drones of different types working in coordination to seamlessly integrate UAS, USV, UGV, and stationary launchers into a single swarm operating as one unit.
The company was founded by Serhiy Kupriyenko and Alex Fink in May 2023. Its stated headquarters is in Austin, Texas, the United States. In addition to operations and teams in Ukraine, the company also has a presence in Poland and Estonia.
Prior to the IPO, Kupriyenko held 27.4%, Fink 15.1%, while other shareholders included Theseus Capital Partners (22%), D3 Fund (10.1%), RG.AI Technologies (14%), Green Flag Fund I (5.3%), and Radius Fund I (6.9%).
According to company data filed with the SEC, its revenue declined to $0.31 million in 2025 from $0.33 million a year earlier, while its net loss widened to $8.53 million from $2.07 million.
As of the end of January 2026, Swarmer had $9.28 million in cash on hand and in the same month raised an additional $3.5 million from the sale of convertible preferred shares.
"We expect our operating expenses to increase significantly as we execute our growth strategy, including devoting substantial resources to research and development and marketing. The extent of our future operating losses and the timing of achieving profitability are highly uncertain, and we expect to continue to incur significant expenses and operating losses for the next several years," the company said in its materials.
