Swarmer, a Ukrainian developer of AI solutions for autonomous drone swarms, launched an initial public offering on the Nasdaq Capital Market. The price of one share skyrocketed from $5 to an average of $40 on its first day.
For Nasdaq, it is the first listing of a deftech startup that deploys products in Ukraine. For Ukraine, it is the second launch of a Ukraine-born company on the US Stock Exchange after telecom operator Kyivstar also got its listing last year. But while Kyivstar’s listing was a SPAC-merger, Swarmer went through an IPO (initial public offering), transitioning from private ownership to ownership by public shareholders.
The company placed 3 million shares at an initial price of $5 each. By the close of trading, Swarmer’s shares had climbed more than sixfold to $31. In after-hours trading, the rally extended further, with the price reaching $44 per share – roughly nine times the IPO price. At the moment of writing this article on March, 18, the share price ranges around an average of $40 per share, according to Yahoo.Finance.
Swarmer develops software systems that allow unmanned vehicles to act autonomously and work together in large teams. Its systems are centered on the use of ethical AI that requires the intervention of humans to make all life-or-death decisions, while also allowing computers to process large quantities of information and react to the rapidly changing environment in split seconds. Headquartered in Austin, Texas, Swarmer maintains operations and technical teams in Ukraine, Poland and Estonia.
Lucid Capital Markets is acting as sole bookrunner for the Offering. The gross proceeds from the Offering, before deducting underwriting discounts and commissions and other offering expenses payable by Swarmer, were expected to be approximately $15.0 million. Swarmer granted the underwriter a 30-day option to purchase up to an additional 450,000 shares.
“Swarmer intends to use net proceeds from this Offering for funding of ongoing operations, including expansion of capabilities and our product offering, hiring employees, integration with the hardware of drone manufacturers, and for working capital and other general corporate purposes,” Swarmer wrote in a press release regarding the IPO launch.
According to the company’s website, Swarmer’s key products include Trident OS, designed to safeguard data storage and video streaming for swarm reliability; MINAS, which provides AI-powered collaborative autonomy for multiple UAVs per operator in denied environments; and STYX, a next-generation command-and-control (C2) system for managing units.
The scale of the post-IPO rally suggests that the offering may have been conservatively priced relative to market appetite, a common dynamic for smaller high-growth listings, Scroll.media wrote.
Swarmer filed a registration statement with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for an initial public offering (IPO) in February 2025.
The filing follows a record-breaking year for the sector. In 2025, over 50 Ukrainian defense-tech startups raised more than $105 million in total funding, according to Brave1 data. Among them, Swarmer previously secured a $15 million investment round – the single-largest investment in a Ukrainian defense tech company since the start of the war.
An important caveat: Early trading volatility does not always reflect the long-term fundamental trend – so, Kyiv Post will follow the future dynamics of Swarmer’s shares to keep readers and investors informed.