D-Fend Solutions
Israeli counter-drone company, acquired by Motorola Solutions in August 2026, producing RF cyber systems that take control of rogue drones and land them rather than jamming or destroying them.
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What It Is
D-Fend Solutions builds radio-frequency counter-drone systems that seize control of a rogue aircraft rather than jamming or destroying it. It was founded in 2017 by Zohar Halachmi, Assaf Monsa and Yaniv Benbenisti, is headquartered in Ra’anana, Israel, and has offices in the United States, the United Kingdom and Japan. Customers are militaries, police forces, airports, borders and critical infrastructure operators. Since August 2026 it has been a wholly owned subsidiary of Motorola Solutions.
The company says its EnforceAir system detects a drone’s control link, identifies the aircraft, and executes an RF “cyber takeover” that lands it at a designated point without broadband jamming and without emissions that disrupt surrounding communications. The commercial argument for that is as much legal as technical: jamming is restricted or illegal in most civil jurisdictions, so a system that does not jam sits in a different regulatory category. A landed drone can also be examined afterwards, which a kinetic or jamming defeat rules out.
Products
EnforceAir2 is the current core system, sold in fixed-site, vehicle-mounted, portable and fly-away kit configurations, with a maritime variant for naval use.
EnforceAir PLUS, launched in 2025, packages EnforceAir2 with radar detection and optional RF jamming in a single unit. It is worth reading that as a concession: takeover alone does not cover every threat, and D-Fend’s newest flagship bundles the jamming its original positioning was built against.
Ownership and Finances
D-Fend raised approximately $67 million in venture funding, the last round a $31 million raise in December 2024 led by Israel Growth Partners, with Claridge Israel also on the register. Motorola Solutions announced the acquisition on 1 June 2026 and completed it on 20 August 2026 for $1.5 billion — roughly eight times the $185 million of full-year 2026 revenue Motorola said it expected D-Fend to produce. Motorola also stated that D-Fend’s annual revenue had grown by more than 50 percent a year over the preceding three years. Halachmi remained chief executive and became Motorola’s senior vice president for counter-drone solutions.
Deployment figures come from the two companies rather than independent audit: thousands of deployments across more than 30 countries. Police agencies in the United States, Canada and Mexico used EnforceAir around the 2026 FIFA World Cup.
Why It Matters
The $1.5 billion price is the clearest valuation signal the counter-UAS sector has produced, and it went to a takeover system rather than a gun, laser or interceptor. That validates the argument that the binding constraint in civil airspace defence is legal rather than kinetic.
The exposure is technical. Protocol-based takeover depends on the target speaking a control link the system knows, which is precisely what fibre-optic-guided, fully autonomous and bespoke military drones do not do — and that is the direction the threat is moving. EnforceAir PLUS, with its added radar and jamming, is the company’s own answer to that limit. Under Motorola, D-Fend also becomes one line in a public-safety portfolio rather than a standalone specialist, which changes who it sells alongside and who it now competes with.
