Space-Eyes is heading to the public market through a merger with SPAC McKinley Acquisition Corp, a deal that values the combined company at about $638M. The Miami startup, whose backers include Eric Trump as its third-largest private investor, plans to list on the Nasdaq under the ticker CUAS.
The company builds software that fuses satellite feeds, radio-frequency sensors and radar data to spot and track drones and vessels in real time. SeaWatch monitors maritime traffic for threats, while Morpheus focuses on neutralizing autonomous aerial attacks. Space-Eyes describes its approach as data-driven defense software rather than hardware manufacturing, and it plans to scale using third-party manufacturers to chase contracts across multiple countries.
Business today is small: around $1M in annual revenue, with existing contracts worth roughly $300,000 to $400,000 a year. The company is negotiating about $35M in five-year deals spanning drug-trafficking surveillance in the Caribbean, Middle East defense applications and contraband-drone prevention at US prisons.
The SPAC transaction should generate about $251.7M in gross proceeds from McKinley’s trust account and a planned PIPE financing. Eric Trump will stay on as a strategic adviser, having already connected management with prospective board candidates. Founder and CEO Jatin Bains will continue to lead the business, which also sees opportunity in corporate clients such as data center operators and cruise lines.
Completion is expected in the fourth quarter of 2026, pending shareholder and regulatory approvals. The listing adds to a wave of AI-focused defense startups reaching public markets, with investors warming to software-first models in a sector long dominated by hardware primes.
