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A drone company where Erik Prince serves as the Non-Executive Chairman signed an MOU with another drone company that is planning to merge with a firm where Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr. are investors.
Powerus announced that it signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with drone company Swarmer to explore “integrating Swarmer’s coordination software with Powerus air and maritime autonomous systems. The collaboration targets defense, counter-UAS, border security, and critical-infrastructure missions.”
The Non-Executive Chairman of Swarmer, a drone company that has operated in Ukraine, is Blackwater founder Erik Prince.
Drone company Powerus, also known as Autonomous Power Corporation, is planning to merge with a publicly traded golf course holding company called Aureus Greenway, where Trump sons Eric and Don Jr. are investors.
While there is no indication that Erik Prince or Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr. were directly involved in the MOU, it is notable that Prince and the Trump sons are investors in deals involving two drone companies that are now exploring ways to collaborate together.
Note: there is no indication of any wrongdoing or illegal activity by any of the people or entities covered here. This information is shared to provide transparency into financial deals involving people connected to the Trump administration, directly and indirectly.
The growing investment craze for drones
This recent piece by Sharon Weinberger in New York Magazine, called ‘The Degenerates of the Drone Stock Bubble’, described the investor craze for drone stocks and some of the well known names investing in drone businesses, including Erik Prince, Eric Schmidt, the former CEO of Google, and Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr.
Last month I published this story on Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr. and their investments in several drone deals.
Eric and Don Jr. together own approximately 12% of Dominari Holdings, which in turn owns 90% of American Ventures, which is an investor in JFB Construction, which plans to merge with drone AI company Xtend. American Ventures is a lead investor in golf company Aureus Greenway, which plans to merge with drone company Powerus. These planned mergers have not yet taken place
If there is an opportunity to profit off regional warfare and conflict, former Blackwater founder Erik Prince is often hovering nearby, and he is now involved in several businesses focused on drone warfare.
Erik Prince’s company Vectus Global has been supporting police operations in Haiti and reportedly has been involved in drone strikes targeting gangs. There are separate reports that drone attacks have killed innocent bystanders and children in Haiti. A report by Human Rights Watch says Haitian security forces and private contractors have conducted drone strikes killing over 1,243 people, including dozens of people reportedly not part of criminal groups, and killing 17 children.
And Erik Prince is now Chairman of Swarmer. Following is some background on Prince, more details on his role and stake in Swarmer and on the network of people connected to Swarmer.
The CliffsNotes background of Erik Prince
Erik Prince, the brother of former Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, was the founder of military contractor Blackwater which became notorious in what is known as the Nisour Square massacre of 2007, when Blackwater employees killed 17 Iraqi civilians. After leaving Blackwater Prince created a mercenary army for the United Arab Emirates and created a security and logistics company Frontier Services Group (FSG) which is majority Chinese state-owned.
I started reporting on Erik Prince in 2018 when I broke the story that Prince’s FSG business partner Johnson Chun Shun Ko was (briefly) a director of Emerdata, a late-stage iteration of Cambridge Analytica, the consulting firm that supported Trump’s 2016 campaign and later was notorious for harvesting personal data from tens of millions of Facebook users without their consent and other shady tactics.
This piece on Erik Prince activities around that time barely scratched the surface of his prolific and often questionable business ventures, including multiple appearances in the Trump-Russia story during Trump’s first term in office.
In the Trump-Russia story, a few people in Trump’s orbit have appeared repeatedly, attending ‘secret’ meetings and pursuing self-enriching business deals — Michael Flynn, Steve Bannon, Jared Kushner, Paul Manafort, Michael Cohen, Elliot Broidy, George Nader. Among this group of frenetic deal-makers, Erik Prince may be the most prolific in pitching and launching new business ideas, while striving to spread his influence and operations around the world.
Prince who founded the private security company Blackwater seemed to reach his peak around 2006, became embroiled in highly publicized investigations into civilian deaths in Iraq the next year, and then left his company and country, to rebuild his career overseas. Prince has re-emerged in the past few years, pitching new deals and leveraging strong connections within the Trump administration, to promote his career.
While that description applied to Erik Prince’s activities during Donald Trump’s first term as president, Prince has continued to chase military, private contractor, security, mineral and other deals around the world, often in troubled conflict zones. And Prince continues to try to leverage his ties to the current Trump administration.
As Weinberger noted in her New York story on the investment craze around drones, “While Erik Prince may appear to some like a Bond villain, for a company selling software designed to control swarms of killer drones, he is the perfect spokesman.“
Erik Prince is now the Non-Executive Chairman of drone company Swarmer
Erik Prince has been trying for years to gain a foothold in Ukraine’s defense industry.
In 2019 Prince was in talks to buy Ukrainian aircraft factory Motor Sich. And per a Time report in 2020 Erik Prince circulated a proposal for a $10 billion plan to build weapons and create a private army for Ukraine. While those earlier plans did not materialize, fast forward to 2026 and Prince found a leading role.
Earlier this year drone software company Swarmer did an initial public offering on Nasdaq and filings revealed that Erik Prince is the Non-Executive Chairman of their board of directors. The Guardian reported the news:
Swarmer, which bills itself as a battle-tested Ukrainian startup specializing in autonomous drone software, filed for an initial public offering and has recruited Prince to help sell the company as non-executive chair.
Per their February 2026 Registration Statement “Swarmer is a software-first defense technology company focused on collaborative autonomy and intelligent swarming, originating from the cauldron of modern combat in Ukraine.” The company had 49 full-time employees and 38 contractors across various offices, including a subsidiary called Autonomous Robotics Systems LLC in Kyiv, Ukraine, marketing and sales operations based in Austin, Texas, Swarmer Estonia OÜ in Estonia and an office in Warsaw, Poland.
Swarmer is led by Global CEO Serhii Kupriienko, President and US CEO Alexander Fink and Chief Financial Officer Brooks Ensign. Board directors include Erik Prince, Edward Antoian, Amir Frenkel, Derek Reisfield, Philip Wagenheim and Justin Zeefe.
In initial filings Prince was granted options to purchase 943,350 shares at $6.27 per share – updates show options to purchase 1,774,725 shares at $3.33 per share
Per the February 2,2026 Registration Statement Swarmer entered into a two year Chief Strategic Advisor and Non-Executive Chairman agreement with Erik Prince.
On December 8, 2025, we entered into a Chief Strategic Advisor and Non-Executive Chairman Agreement (the Prince Agreement) with Erik Prince… to serve as non-executive Chairman of our Board and Mr. Prince agreed to provide certain services to the company related to external representation of the Company, strategic function, business development and leadership support, communication and coordination, and external engagement and media communications
As compensation for these services, Swarmer granted Erik Prince options to purchase up to an aggregate of 943,350 shares of common stock at a price of approximately $6.27 per share. The options vest and can be used based on various milestones including reaching certain dates, the company achieving $10 million in revenue directly attributable to customers introduced by Prince, equity financing transactions and market capitalization targets.
However, per an updated February 19, 2026 Registration Statement and this March 2026 Form 3 insider holdings report, the number of options appear to have increased significantly and the exercise price was decreased: Erik Prince was granted options to purchase up to 1,774,725 shares of common stock at a price of $3.33.
As of early June, Swarmer’s stock price was trading at around $65 USD. If the price remains at that level and all of Erik Prince’s options vested, he could potentially purchase shares worth more than $100 million. There are a lot of ‘ifs’ – but it is safe to say that Erik Prince has a significant stake in the upside success of Swarmer.
Swarmer investors
In 2025 Swarmer raised $15 million in a Series A funding round led by U.S. investors. the financing was “led by Broadband Capital Investments, with participation from R-G.AI, D3 Ventures, Green Flag Ventures, Radius Capital, and Network VC.”
The February 2026 Swarmer Registration Statement lists several officers and directors who have a stake in Swarmer. The filing also lists many of these same names from the 2025 funding round which are greater than 5% stockholders: Theseus Capital Partners, D3 Fund, RG.AI Technolgies, Green Flag Fund and Radius Fund I.
Swarmer board director Philip Wagenheim is the managing member of Theseus Capital Partners. Eveline Buchatskiy has the sole voting power for D3 Fund. Charles Eberly von Szecsey has the sole voting power for RG.AI Technologies. Swarmer director Justin Zeefe is the founder of Green Flag Ventures. Peter Shannon has the sole voting power of Radius Fund I.
An interesting detail tucked into this Reuters story is that former Google chief executive Eric Schmidt was an early backer of Swarmer.
I was not able to confirm any more information on Schmidt’s investment in Swarmer or whether he is still an investor. However, Schmidt has backed other drone businesses in Ukraine. In 2024 Forbes reported on Schmidt’s stealth military project in Ukraine “working on a military startup called White Stork with plans to design “suicide” attack drones.” And according to Bloomberg, Schmidt has also backed drone company Project Eagle.
A few highlights on Swarmer executives and directors
Following are a few items I found while researching Swarmer that show some interesting inter-connections.
As noted earlier Swarmer is led by Global CEO Serhii Kupriienko, President and US CEO Alexander Fink and Chief Financial Officer Brooks Ensign. Board directors include Erik Prince, Edward Antoian, Amir Frenkel, Derek Reisfield, Philip Wagenheim and Justin Zeefe.
Swarmer’s chief legal officer Jennifer DeTrani previously worked at Nisos Holdings, which was founded by Swarmer director Justin Zeefe. DeTrani co-founded messaging app Wickr, a company in which Erik Prince was also an investor.
Swarmer director Derek Reisfield has an extensive bio and was previously an executive at drone company Ondas, Inc., a firm that has co-invested with drone company Unusual Machines on several deals. Unusual Machines is a co-investor with American Ventures and Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr. in the proposed JFB Construction + Xtend and Aureus Greenway + Powerus drone merged deals.
Just to bring everything full circle, here are a few details about Powerus. Brett Velicovich, the Co-founder of Powerus, was named a Board Advisor for Red Cat Holdings in 2024. Previously Red Cat had spun off its subsidiaries Fat Shark and Rotor Riot into Unusual Machines. The Chief Legal Officer of Powerus, Jim Biehl, was Chief Legal Officer of Tyme Technologies, which I wrote about here, noting that one Tyme investor was Cova Funding, a firm run by Andrew Intrater who is a cousin of Russian oligarch Viktor Vekselberg. And there are some interesting details in this piece on Charge Enterprises founded by Powerus founder Andrew Fox.
These drone deals are definitely worth keeping an eye on, and it will be interesting to see if there is more to the story of the overlapping drone deals involving Erik Prince, Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr. and the Swamer and Powerus MOU.