Ondas Holdings reported second-quarter revenue of $83.8 million, against $6.3 million a year earlier — more than a thirteen-fold increase — and raised full-year 2026 guidance to $525–550 million. In the same quarter it lost $89.7 million.
Both halves are the story. Ondas is now one of the fastest-growing revenue lines in the listed drone sector, and it is buying that growth at a rate few of its peers are attempting.
The numbers
Total operating expenses reached $199.1 million in the quarter, of which $67.6 million was stock-based compensation. Adjusted EBITDA was a loss of $50.6 million. The company ended June 30 with roughly $1.4 billion in cash, cash equivalents, restricted cash and short-term investments, which is the figure that makes the burn survivable.
Backlog stood at about $613 million on a reported basis and $757 million pro forma. The company captured roughly $175 million of new orders during the quarter. Guidance for the third quarter is $140–155 million, which would represent further sequential growth on the second quarter’s $83.8 million.
Eric Brock, Ondas chairman and chief executive, said the team was “performing at a high level, as evidenced by our record second-quarter results.”
Acquisitions are doing much of the work
Two deals closed inside and just after the quarter. Ondas acquired DZYNE Technologies on July 2 and Cyberhawk on August 10. The pro-forma backlog figure, $144 million above the reported number, is where the acquired contribution is visible.
That matters for reading the guidance raise. Lifting a full-year target to $525–550 million while reporting $83.8 million in the second quarter implies a very heavily back-loaded year, and the arithmetic depends on acquired businesses consolidating on schedule rather than on organic momentum alone. The company reported pro-forma organic growth of 85% year on year, which is strong — but it is a materially different number from the thirteen-fold headline, and the gap between them is the acquisition effect.
The comparison that flatters and the one that does not
Against the rest of the listed drone group, Ondas’s revenue trajectory is the outlier. Against its own cost base, the picture is harder. An adjusted EBITDA loss of $50.6 million on $83.8 million of revenue means the incremental dollar is not yet close to paying for itself, and $67.6 million of stock compensation in a single quarter is a real transfer of value from existing shareholders even where it does not consume cash.
FlightBrief’s assessment is that the $1.4 billion balance sheet, not the growth rate, is what makes this strategy available. Ondas is executing a roll-up in a sector where counter-drone and defence-adjacent demand is expanding faster than any single company can serve organically, and it has the cash to pay for position rather than wait for it. The risk is the ordinary one for roll-ups: integration is where acquired backlog either converts into recognised revenue or quietly slips.
The third-quarter print is the test. Guidance of $140–155 million against $83.8 million delivered would be the first quarter in which the acquired businesses carry a full period, and it is where a guidance raise built on deal timing becomes visible either way.
