XTEND

Overview

XTEND is an Israeli defense-technology company that builds human-guided autonomous drone systems — machines a soldier can fly with a VR headset and a handheld controller, with no flight experience, in places too dangerous for people to enter. Founded in Tel Aviv in 2018 as a video-game company, it remade itself as a defense contractor after the October 7, 2023 attacks, and in September 2026 it went public through a $1.5 billion merger that pulled in some conspicuous investors: Eric Trump personally, and Unusual Machines, the Florida drone-component maker that counts Donald Trump Jr. as an adviser (Reuters; The Jerusalem Post).

From video games to the battlefield

The founders — brothers Aviv and Matteo Shapira, Rubi Liani, and Adir Tubi — were not defense people. They were extended-reality specialists whose previous company, Replay Technologies, had been acquired by Intel in 2016 for a reported $175 million (The Drone Girl; The Jerusalem Post). XTEND’s original business was immersive gaming: making it feel natural to fly a virtual drone using wearable displays and gesture controls (The Drone Girl).

October 7 changed the company’s direction entirely. CEO Aviv Shapira has said publicly that the Hamas attacks made him realize his technology could keep soldiers out of harm’s way, and XTEND developed a new concept of operations — drones enter the battlefield before the soldiers do (The Jerusalem Post). Its drones were used to map tunnels under the Gaza Strip and, the company says, to intercept Hezbollah drones in northern Israel (The Jerusalem Post). Shapira’s pitch to buyers is that the systems are battle-proven in a way lab-tested rivals are not: “At XTEND, we’ve unfortunately been involved in many conflicts around the world. But that experience makes our technology truly battle-proven, something you can’t buy. And operating with remotes saves lives” (The Jerusalem Post).

XOS: the “Android of robotics”

XTEND’s core product is not really a drone — it is XOS, an operating system for drones. Where most Western drone makers sell a proprietary drone with a proprietary camera running proprietary software, XOS is open and platform-agnostic: the software sits on top of hardware that can range from a tiny indoor micro-drone to a ground rover to a maritime vessel, and operators download capabilities — license-plate recognition, indoor threat tracking, thermal mapping — the way phone users download apps (The Drone Girl). Shapira calls it the Android of the robotics world: “We are that Android of the market. If I’m a police officer and I need a drone that does license plate recognition, I go to the marketplace, the app store, and download that capability” (The Drone Girl). Third-party developers can build applications and hardware payloads on top of XOS, and the company says it works with more than 100 partners (The Drone Girl). The pitch is that the gaming DNA survived the pivot: software that translates human intention into AI-driven action, so an operator with zero flight experience can fly complex indoor and outdoor missions (The Drone Girl).

By mid-2025 XTEND’s AI-enabled systems were in use with the U.S. Department of Defense, Singapore, European customers, the United Kingdom, and the Israel Defense Forces (Reuters).

The $1.5 billion merger — with a construction company

In February 2026 XTEND announced an all-stock merger with JFB Construction Holdings, a Florida-based, Nasdaq-listed construction firm, valuing the deal at $1.5 billion and aimed at taking XTEND public (Reuters). The pairing confused observers — until Shapira explained it: “How can I build the most advanced, biggest, and most capable factory in the U.S. without a construction company? JFB is physically building our advanced manufacturing facilities” (The Drone Girl). To meet strict NDAA supply-chain mandates and scale American production, XTEND built manufacturing facilities in Tampa, Florida, and Virginia, and the merger gave it direct access to U.S. public capital markets (The Drone Girl).

The deal was backed by a $152 million strategic investment round (The Drone Girl). The merger closed on September 4, 2026; the combined company was renamed XTEND AI Robotics and began trading under the ticker XTND (The Drone Girl). Shapira called it “a significant milestone in a journey that began less than a decade ago in Israel,” saying it would let the company accelerate growth and bring its systems to more missions (The Jerusalem Post).

The Trump-family connection

The investor roster is where XTEND enters this wiki’s story. Eric Trump, the president’s son, invested personally in the merger round (Reuters). Unusual Machines — the Florida drone-component maker that put Donald Trump Jr. on its advisory board in November 2024 — is also investing in the merger, according to the JFB announcement (Reuters). Other named investors include Israel’s Protego Ventures, Texas real-estate developer American Ventures, and Miami-based Aliya Capital (Reuters), with Agostinelli Group and TAU Ventures also participating (The Jerusalem Post). The company’s workhorse airframe, the Scorpio 1000 quadcopter, is typical of the ruggedized systems its XOS software flies (The Drone Girl).

Reuters framed the deal as part of a broader pattern: the Trump family expanding its business ventures since the president’s return to office, at a moment when drones have become a top-selling Pentagon item and Silicon Valley money is pouring into drone and military-AI startups, lifting valuations across firms like Anduril and Shield AI (Reuters). One precision matters: the queue described XTEND as a company with Donald Trump Jr.’s “investment/advisory ties,” but the verified record shows the link running one step removed — Trump Jr. advises Unusual Machines, which invested in XTEND; Eric Trump is the family member who invested directly.

What this profile does not claim

This profile does not claim a direct investment or advisory relationship between Donald Trump Jr. and XTEND — none was found in the sources read; the connection runs through Unusual Machines. It does not state the dollar size of Eric Trump’s investment or of Unusual Machines’ stake, which were not disclosed in the sources read in full. It does not resolve the Nasdaq-versus-NYSE discrepancy in listing reports. It does not assert impropriety around the Trump-family investments — no such finding is reported. And it does not repeat the unverified September 2026 claim about a commentator’s FARA registration for XTEND.