Ondas’ sudden ascent raises questions after nearly $2 billion in capital raises
The US-listed company’s Israeli defense acquisitions and executive hires contrast sharply with its recent financial history.
A flurry of acquisitions of Israeli companies, capital raisings of almost two billion dollars from little-known sources, and the appointment of senior executives from Israel’s defense industry. This is how the eventful year 2025 can be described at the ostensibly American company called Ondas. How does a company that only a year ago faced the threat of delisting from Nasdaq due to a prolonged low share price, and that had been operating for years under a going-concern warning, leap to a market value of $5 billion and raise $1 billion in a massive offering that would not embarrass even the most promising high-tech companies?
Anyone who begins to take an interest in Ondas today will seemingly find a routine American company that has been traded on Wall Street since 2018, operates in the defense market, and is managed by American executives whose photographs are displayed on the company’s meticulously polished website. However, a closer look at its history reveals a very different picture, one that raises numerous questions about the real story behind the “American” Ondas.
At the end of 2024, Ondas was among the backbenchers of Wall Street. It had operated for years under a going-concern warning against the backdrop of a continuous decline in revenue, which fell by more than 50% between 2023 and 2024, to just $7 million. Over its lifetime, the company accumulated substantial losses: in 2024 alone it lost $35 million, following a $40 million loss in 2023. Since the start of its operations, cumulative losses reached $236 million, while cash reserves stood at only about $30 million at the end of 2024. This is where a dramatic turning point in Ondas’ history begins, at a time when the company was one step away from being delisted from Nasdaq.
Beginning in early 2025, Ondas started raising capital on an almost monthly basis, tentatively at first, with single-digit million dollar amounts through convertible bonds. The pace then accelerated: a $48 million equity offering in June 2025, another $170 million in August, $230 million in September, and, a month later, an additional $425 million in October, despite no material improvement in its underlying business performance. By the end of 2025, Ondas’ cash balance stood at roughly $800 million, after raising $855 million over the course of the year. Even that failed to sate investor demand. The company’s share price rose more than tenfold, and last week Ondas completed a fundraising round that was large even by Wall Street standards: a $1 billion offering. Most of the capital came from a single institutional investor, another puzzling detail that would likely draw questions from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, should it choose to examine the matter.
At the same time, throughout 2025, scarcely a month passed without Ondas announcing the appointment of a new senior executive. In practice, most of the managers whose photographs currently appear on the company’s website were appointed during this period. The majority of Ondas’ senior leadership joined within the past two years. Those without defense backgrounds largely come from small investment firms. The most veteran and stable figure remains the American CEO and chairman, Eric Brock. Many of the appointments made over the past year involve senior figures from Israel’s defense industry, particularly Rafael, alongside several executives from the U.S. defense establishment. In parallel, Ondas has reported a steady stream of new defense contracts, primarily in the field of drones. These contracts have begun to be reflected in revenue, which reached $10 million in the third quarter of 2025, the most recent period reported, exceeding the company’s total revenue for all of 2024. Its order backlog now stands at $20 million. Yet even with this growth, Ondas remains far from justifying a $5 billion valuation and nearly $2 billion in capital raised within a single year.
How, then, did Ondas’ revenue increase? The answer lies in an acquisition spree involving no fewer than nine Israeli defense companies. These acquisitions are not coincidental. Ondas’ Israeli connection runs far deeper than it initially appears. In fact, Ondas is an outgrowth of the Israeli startup Full Spectrum, founded by Menashe Shahar, who previously held senior roles at major communications equipment companies such as Nortel and WorldCom. In 2016, Shahar, then serving as CTO, took the company public on Nasdaq, raising a modest $17 million. In 2018, after limited commercial success and continued operation under a going-concern warning, Full Spectrum merged with Ondas. Until 2023, when the outbreak of the war in Israel coincided with the start of Ondas’ acquisition spree, the company sold essentially a single product developed by Full Spectrum, whose revenues were in steady decline.
Today, Ondas operates through two main divisions. Ondas Networks is the smaller activity, based on the original Israeli product and employing around 30 people. The company’s core growth engine, however, is once again Israeli-led and is managed by Oshri Lugassy, former VP of Sales & Marketing at Rafael. This unit, known as OAS, consolidates the products acquired in the drone sector for both military and civilian applications and already employs close to 100 people. Shahar currently serves as CTO at Ondas Networks, while Guy Simpson, a co-founder of Full Spectrum, serves as Chief Solutions and Operations Officer at the same unit.
