DJI Tried to Buy Skydio in 2014—Now It’s Worth $4.4 Billion

In a recent interview, Skydio CEO Adam Bry said that DJI tried to acquire the company over a decade ago.

According to Bry, he and two other Skydio founders flew to Shenzhen for an in-person meeting in 2014, where they got the offer.

At the time, Skydio hadn’t even released its first drone yet—that would be the consumer-focused R1, which came out in 2018—and it was a much smaller player.

Of course, they said no.

“The main reason we decided not to do it was because we felt like [DJI] didn’t really understand the importance of autonomy and how much that was going to change who could use drones and how they could use them. We felt like it was really important and we believed in our ability to execute against it.”

– Adam Bry, CEO of Skydio

Now, Skydio is worth $4.4 billion.

That valuation was announced recently along with the results of a new Series F funding round, in which Skydio raised $110 million. In the same announcement, the company shared plans for a massive $3.5 billion investment in U.S.-based manufacturing.

Skydio’s big news shows how the drone industry is changing—and how Skydio is placing itself at the center of domestic drone production.

What Skydio’s $3.5B Investment Says about Where the Drone Industry Is Heading

Skydio’s $3.5 billion announcement is huge news.

The company says it plans to invest that money in the U.S. over the next five years to expand domestic manufacturing, accelerate R&D, and build out American drone supply chains.

The plan includes more than 2,000 new Skydio jobs, which will triple its employee count (Skydio currently employs about 900 people).

It will also support more than 3,000 additional roles in the supply chain, and direct over $1 billion to domestic suppliers.

What Skydio Plans to Build

The centerpiece of the investment is a new initiative called SkyForge.

SkyForge is more than a single factory. The plan includes a new U.S. manufacturing facility—expected to be five times larger than Skydio’s current space—along with a broader effort to expand domestic production capacity around it.

According to the company, this will include inviting key suppliers to co-locate manufacturing nearby.

In practice, that means building not just an assembly site, but a more integrated production environment where critical components can be sourced and produced closer to where the drones are actually made.

The Real Problem: The U.S. Drone Supply Chain Is Thin

For years, the U.S. drone conversation has focused on where drones are assembled, with people asking whether a drone is really “made in the U.S.”

But assembly is only one part of the equation.

A modern drone depends on a wide range of components:

• batteries
• motors
• sensors
• electronic speed controllers
• cameras and radios
• flight control hardware

Many of these pieces still rely heavily on overseas supply chains—mainly from China.

This reality hit Skydio in 2024, when China sanctioned the company over drone sales to Taiwan. Those sanctions cut off Skydio’s access to batteries from China, forcing it to limit customers to one battery per drone while it worked to find another battery source.

With this investment, Skydio is showing that it took that lesson to heart. As the company builds out domestic production, it will be creating a supply chain that is less vulnerable to the kinds of pressures that once forced it to ration batteries.

Why This Shift Is Happening Now

The timing of Skydio’s investment is no coincidence.

More and more, commercial operators are looking for U.S.-made or NDAA-compliant drones, especially when they’re buying for public safety, government, defense, or critical infrastructure work.

Chinese-made drones may also become harder to find. In late 2025, the FCC added foreign-made drones and certain drone components to its Covered List process, blocking new covered devices from receiving FCC authorization for the U.S. market.

That move effectively blocks DJI, Autel, and other foreign drone companies from introducing new drone models into the U.S. market, though existing approved drones can still be sold, bought, and flown.

But cutting off DJI means there’s a supply gap. To date, no U.S. drone companies have been equipped to produce enough drones to meet U.S. demand.

With SkyForge, Skydio is trying to make itself the company that finally can.

And Skydio isn’t just trying to make more drones in the U.S. It’s trying to help build the production base that would support a larger domestic drone ecosystem.

Credit: Skydio

So What Does This Mean for You?

In reality, Skydio’s investment may not help most drone pilots.

The company stopped selling drones direct to consumers in 2023, announcing a pivot to focus only on enterprise sales.

And the drones it makes as a result of this $3.5 billion investment probably won’t be available for consumers, either.

Most of the production capabilities Skydio builds through SkyForge will likely be for enterprise customers—meaning public safety agencies, defense users, utilities, and drone programs at large companies.

This still leaves a big gap in the market.

For most recreational pilots and solopreneur commercial operators, the loss of DJI and other foreign companies like Autel or the new Antigravity may eventually mean the loss of real options.

But for now, that concern is still speculative.

At the moment you can still find DJI drones readily available in the U.S., and we don’t yet know what a future where DJI can’t release new drones here will actually look like.