As we begin the New Year, I want to pause to reflect on a record-setting 2025 and, more importantly, on the powerful tailwinds accelerating us into 2026 and beyond.
Throughout history, periods of extraordinary progress have been fueled by transformational infrastructure. From Vanderbilt’s railroads to Edison’s electrical grid, to Eisenhower’s interstate highways, each era was defined by foundational systems that unlocked entirely new economic and societal possibilities.
Today, the drone industry stands at a similar inflection point.
Airspace Link is helping power this next great leap forward. Our Drone Operations Management System (DOMS) and Unmanned Aircraft System Traffic Management (UTM) platform form the backbone data infrastructure required to integrate drones safely and seamlessly into the national airspace. We connect federal, state, and local governments with commercial operators across jurisdictions, enabling scalable, compliant, and mission-critical drone operations.
This is more than incremental innovation. It is the beginning of a transformational supercycle, one that will redefine how data is gathered, goods are delivered, emergencies are managed, and infrastructure is inspected.
As I reflect on 2025, I want to extend my sincere gratitude to our customers. The work you accomplish every day using drone technology inspires our team and energizes us to show up and deliver for you.
Whether powering operations behind the scenes through our APIs or orchestrating complex multi-drone missions as your Enterprise Drone Operations Management System (eDOMS). We support these operations across multiple systems, multiple agencies, and multiple jurisdictions with reliability and precision.
Thank you for placing your trust in our team and our platform to support such mission-critical work. It is a responsibility we take seriously, and a partnership we are proud to uphold.
Wow. Our customers across the U.S. completed more than 500 million safety and security interactions in 2025, spanning FAA B4UFLY airspace checks, flight operations, FAA Low Altitude Authorization and Notification Capability (LAANC), routing, advisories, alerts, U.S. UTM, and platform API requests. That averages over 1.4 million transactions every day.
With 757% year-over-year growth, this momentum positions us strongly as we head into 2026. Throughout 2025, we supported between 60,000 and 90,000 monthly active users, reflecting the seasonal dynamics of drone operations nationwide. The Airspace Link AirHub® platform now serves more than 6,000 unique government and commercial organizations, in addition to tens of thousands of recreational flyers, over 130,000 total accounts, and is growing.
Most importantly, we estimate that the AirHub® Portal enabled our customers to generate $1.5 to $2.0 billion in drone-powered economic activity in 2025, simply by providing safe, legal, and scalable access to the national airspace.
I am continually amazed by the talent and dedication of our product and engineering teams. They have built a platform that runs on any device, anywhere, at any time, capable of supporting a child flying their first drone, a three-person commercial team, Drones-as-First-Responder (DFR) programs, BVLOS delivery operations under waiver, Part 135 missions, the security of the New York City New Year’s Eve ball drop, protection of the Blue Angels through advanced counter-UAS operations, and even mission-critical support for the U.S. Air Force, all from the same platform, simultaneously, every day.
That is truly extraordinary.
In short: Everything, everywhere, all at once.
More seriously, 2026 will feel that way because every layer of the drone ecosystem is advancing simultaneously. Our role at Airspace Link is to help you cut through the noise, so you can build a durable, future-proof drone program while effectively leveraging the significant federal funding opportunities available, with clear guidance and execution support.
Without getting into every detail, here’s what you can expect from Airspace Link in 2026:
To be clear:
We don’t fly drones.
We don’t build drones.
We don’t develop software to collect or process drone imagery, and we never have.
We are 100% focused on being your single pane of glass Drone Operations Management Platform.
Airspace Link delivers best-in-class backbone tools and services, spanning 300+ features, 80 datasets, security, approvals, workflows, and operational processes, to support drone programs of any size and complexity. And when we’re not the right solution, we connect you to best-in-class partners through the AirHub® Portal App Store.
That is how we deliver on our promise of everything, everywhere, all at once.
I want to speak candidly about the opportunities unfolding right now for drone companies, startups, operators, investors, and for Airspace Link.
The Transformational Supercycle for Drones in the United States reached its inflection point in January 2026. Not next year. Not someday. Now.
The domestic small Unmanned Aircraft Systems (sUAS) ecosystem is entering a multi-year expansion driven by accelerating demand across both defense and commercial markets, as autonomous platforms move from experimentation to operational necessity.
This momentum is reinforced by clear and favorable U.S. legislation, designed to accelerate adoption, unlock funding, and level the playing field for domestic manufacturers and technology providers across hardware, software, and infrastructure. That policy alignment is a core reason our investors remain bullish on the sector’s long-term trajectory.
On the defense and security side, drones are no longer optional, they are foundational to modern military and homeland security strategy. Two executive orders released from the White House (Unleashing Drone Dominance and Restoring American Airspace Sovereignty) kicked off major initiatives and investments reflected in the legislation (Big Beautiful Bill and NDAA) and DoW and DHS strategies.
For 2026, the United States allocated more than $15B to offensive and defensive unmanned technologies, representing a significant opportunity for:
Airspace Link has been supporting the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), U.S. Air Force, Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Transportation Security Administration (TSA), and other federal agencies for years, connecting cUAS and sUAS operations across FAA, airports, DoW installations, public safety, and multi-agency jurisdictions. We deployed our first production cUAS system in major U.S. cities over four years ago.
In Q1 alone, DHS has announced $1.5B+ contract vehicle for the procurement of cUAS and sUAS systems. The DoW has also released a $1B plan to purchase small UAS over the next two years, and many Federal grants have been authorized for the procurement of cUAS and UAS. Large sums of Federal funds are flowing into strategic UAS programs at the Federal, State, and Local level, and more are anticipated to follow throughout the year. These organizations will be scaling drone operations far beyond what their current fragmented and ad-hoc capabilities can support and will have an immediate need for a robust DOMS.
Across federal, state, and local government, we are seeing rapid expansion in cUAS security and Public Safety Drones-as-First-Responder (DFR) programs, with DFR leading adoption in 2026, followed closely by data collection and inspection use cases.
DHS has announced $500M in grants for state and local governments, with deployment expected at a record pace in Q1. This represents one of the fastest public-sector technology rollouts we’ve seen in decades.
On the commercial front, the market is evolving rapidly through Executive Orders, regulatory deadlines, and FAA proposed Part 108 / Part 146 UTM rulemaking.
As these rules are finalized and enacted in mid-2026, commercial operators will gain a structured, scalable path to single-pilot, multi-drone BVLOS operations at scale.
We are already seeing major players, Amazon Prime Air, Zipline, and Wing (Alphabet) with Walmart, announce large-scale deployment plans for 2026. Airspace Link is actively preparing communities and government drone programs to be compatible, compliant, and operationally ready. We’re also seeing rapid growth across delivery, utilities, and public safety.
This convergence of policy clarity and market demand has unlocked billions of dollars for the drone ecosystem. Hardware OEMs, software developers, component suppliers, and airspace management platforms all stand to benefit as industry consolidation accelerates adoption.
Airspace Link uniquely spans this entire landscape with a single, certified, data exchange platform, delivering:
All delivered through a non-competitive, secure data exchange capable of supporting multi-vendor, multi-agency, multi-jurisdictional operations, today.
This is an unprecedented moment—for our current investors, our employees, and new investors who can look beyond the AI hype cycle and recognize the sUAS ecosystem as one of the fastest-growing infrastructure layers of the next decade.
Thank you to our investors and employee stakeholders for supporting seven years of development, experience, and investment. Airspace Link is exceptionally well-positioned to help secure U.S. airspace while enabling our existing Visual Line of Sight (VLOS) customers to scale to BVLOS with minimal friction if they are already on the platform.
Airspace Link and its partners are ready now for federal funding deployment and commercial operator scaling into Part 108, 146, and national UTM.
We are at one of those rare moments in history when technology, regulation, capital, and mission align all at once. The drone industry is no longer a promise or an experiment; it is becoming essential infrastructure. The decisions made in 2026 will define leaders for the next decade.
At Airspace Link, we do not view this moment as incremental growth. We see it as a responsibility. A responsibility to provide the trusted backbone that allows drones to scale safely, securely, and legally across communities, agencies, and enterprises. A responsibility to support domestic innovation, protect public safety, and enable operators from first responders to global logistics providers to operate with confidence at scale.
The transformational supercycle for drones has begun. The technology is ready. The funding is real. The rules are coming. The demand is here. Those who act decisively will shape the next era of aviation.
This is not the time to wait…
This is not the time to hesitate…
Carpe Diem,
Michael Healander
Co-Founder & CEO
Airspace Link