XTEND

The founders and the structure

XTEND was founded in 2018 by brothers Aviv Shapira, who serves as CEO, and Matteo Shapira, together with Rubi Liani, the chief technology officer, and Adir Tubi, the chief operating officer. The company was founded in Tel Aviv. In 2025 it opened a headquarters and manufacturing plant in Tampa, Florida, and since then it has been described as a US-headquartered company. In July 2025 it employed about 120 people, more than half of them in Israel and the rest in the US and Singapore, and according to CTech it planned to hire more people for its development teams in Israel. That is why it is included here: its origin and development are Israeli, even though the headquarters moved abroad.

XOS: autonomy under human guidance

The core technology is XOS, an operating system that the company describes as combining human judgment with machine autonomy. The operator guides the drone or robot at the mission level, and the system carries out parts of it on its own using AI. According to the company, the combination is meant to reduce the need for direct physical confrontation, and with it the number of casualties. Some of the familiar claims about the system come from interested parties: Avi Fischer, chairman of Clal Industries and Claltech, which invested in the company, said users told him the AI-based training cut learning time by 99%.

War, customers and funding

According to the CEO, during the "Swords of Iron" war the company moved all of its activity to defense and supplied drones of various types for military operations. In July 2025 it completed a $70 million Series B round, including a $30 million extension led by Aliya Capital Partners and Protego Ventures, with participation from Len Blavatnik's Claltech. According to the company, its systems are used by the US Department of Defense, countries in Europe, the UK, Singapore and the IDF. The company cites more than 12,500 systems deployed in more than 30 countries.

Going public

In February 2026 XTEND signed a merger agreement with JFB Construction Holdings, a Florida construction company whose shares traded on Nasdaq. The merger was completed on 3 September 2026: a new parent company was created in Delaware, Xtend AI Robotics, and the Israeli company became its wholly owned subsidiary. According to the filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, the stock was set to begin trading on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker XTND on 4 September 2026, and in the company's announcement of 16 September it is already presented as trading under that ticker. A route like this, merging into a company that is already public, makes it possible to reach the stock exchange without a regular initial public offering.

The Pentagon drone program

On 16 September 2026 XTEND announced that it had been selected as one of the top performers in the second phase of the US Department of War's drone program, a $1 billion program to build an American supply chain for cheap one-way attack drones. According to the company, it delivered and demonstrated 120 STRIKER systems, designed for missions in enclosed spaces and places without satellite navigation reception, and it was selected in the Close Quarters Battle category. The company's own announcement adds a caveat: the ten companies selected are candidates for prototype contracts, and winning a contract is not guaranteed.