$AVEX
Aevex Aerospace. Public since April. Batman.
They build autonomous military drones. The nav system, CompassX, runs without GPS or an operator link. Cameras plus AI match the ground to a terrain map and place the aircraft inside 5 meters. Nothing to jam because nothing’s transmitting.
Every drone that relies on GPS or RF gets killed the second it meets real electronic warfare, which is now standard on any modern battlefield.
Army picked their Atlas strike platform for fielding last October; Air Force has cut them multiple one-way-attack contracts.
Numbers:
- Q1 rev $216.7M, +307% YoY off $53.3M
- Net income +$21M, from a -$27.3M loss
- Adj EBITDA +$36.4M, from -$13.4M
- FY guide $600–620M
- Backlog $356.6M, \~93% converting this year, plus a recent $50M USAF contract
Earnings Aug 14, options implying \~12%.
Madison Dearborn owns most of it. Part of the slide from $42 was a June secondary, 8M shares at $27, plus a block sale. Other read: MDP’s a build-and-hold shop (TransUnion, Asurion) deliberately building a defense arm. They trimmed didnt exit. Not sure if there’s more scheduled blocks
- 9 analysts, unanimous strong buy, avg target $35.75 (\~75%), high $45
- Not just drones, loitering munitions and unmanned surface vessels
- \~2-3M daily volume. Thin float, low coverage. Tried to hedge today it wasn’t great.
2000 shares, Aug and Oct $25 calls. Screenshot attached
TLDR- ai drones and surface vessels. Just turned a profit just IPOd in April. Big year for drones. Vision nav is cool. Will probably roll August calls to something longer but for now we ball.