Aevex Corp. (AVEX), a drone company, priced its IPO at $20.00 – just above the $19.50 mid-point of its range – and sold 16 million shares – the number in the prospectus – to raise $320 million on Thursday night, April 16, 2026. Aevex (AVEX) is expected to start trading on Friday, April 17, on the New York Stock Exchange.
At pricing, Aevex had a market cap of $2.24 billion.
Goldman Sachs, BofA Securities and Jefferies were the joint lead book-runners. JPMorgan, RBC Capital Markets and Baird acted as book-running managers. William Blair, Raymond James and Needham & Co. acted as book-runners.
Madison Dearborn, a private equity firm, is Aevex Corp.’s principal stockholder. After the IPO, Madison Dearborn will control Aevex through its stake representing 79.1 percent of the combined voting power of the company’s outstanding Class A and Class B stock, the prospectus said.
Aevex, based in Solana Beach, California, designs, manufactures and delivers unmanned aerial systems (UAS). Its drone solutions are sold to the U.S. Department of Defense (also known as the Department of War) as well as to Special Operations Forces, the intelligence community and allied international partners.
“Our UxS portfolio is underpinned by our proprietary AI-based CompassX sensor-fusion engine, which delivers assured positioning, navigation, and timing (“APNT”) and advanced onboard autonomy in GPS-denied environments,” the prospectus said.
Aevex is not profitable, according to the prospectus: Aevex reported a net loss of $16.78 million on revenue of $431.93 million for the 12 months that ended Dec. 31, 2025.