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Perennial Autonomy (formerly White Stork / Project Eagle)

The secretive AI attack-drone venture Eric Schmidt quietly founded in 2023 as 'White Stork' has since rebranded twice and now operates as Perennial Autonomy, holding a $500 million Pentagon counter-drone contract built on combat use in Ukraine.

BattlePolicy Research · Updated 28 Jul 2026 · 6 min read
FILE · perennial-autonomyOpen-source file · BattlePolicy ProStatus Private, financed principally by Eric Schmidt personally/through his family office Hillspire (no institutional VC round has been publicly reported); as of May 2026 holds a three-year, $500M-ceiling IDIQ contract with the Pentagon's Joint Interagency Task Force 401 (JIATF-401) for counter-drone systems, plus an earlier $5.2M JIATF-401 agreement (Jan/Feb 2026) for the Bumblebee V2.Unverified
Perennial Autonomy (formerly White Stork / Project Eagle)
Counter-UAS / AI attack & interceptor dronesCombat-fieldedUSPrivate, financed principally by Eric Schmidt personally/through his family office Hillspire (no institutional VC round has been publicly reported); as of May 2026 holds a three-year, $500M-ceiling IDIQ contract with the Pentagon's Joint Interagency Task Force 401 (JIATF-401) for counter-drone systems, plus an earlier $5.2M JIATF-401 agreement (Jan/Feb 2026) for the Bumblebee V2.
The secretive AI attack-drone venture Eric Schmidt quietly founded in 2023 as 'White Stork' has since rebranded twice and now operates as Perennial Autonomy, holding a $500 million Pentagon counter-drone contract built on combat use in Ukraine.
Founded
2023
HQ
Menlo Park, California, USA
Headcount
undisclosedreported to include 'at least a dozen' senior hires from Apple, SpaceX, Google and federal agencies as of mid-2024; likely larger now
Total raised
undisclosed / no public institutional round — financed by Eric Schmidt personally via Hillspire
Valuation
undisclosed
Stage
Privately held; revenue-stage via US DoD (JIATF-401, up to $500M IDIQ) and Ukraine MoD contracts

Background

In August 2023, former Google CEO Eric Schmidt began quietly assembling a military drone venture through a chain of holding entities — Swift Beat Holdings, owned by the Estonia-registered Volya Robotics OÜ — that Forbes first identified in January 2024 as 'White Stork,' a name chosen as a nod to Ukraine's national bird.

The company recruited engineers poached from Apple, SpaceX, Google, and federal agencies, operating out of Schmidt's Menlo Park, California family office Hillspire while testing prototypes in Ukraine with feedback from its Ministry of Defense. By mid-2024 the venture had rebranded to 'Project Eagle'; by 2026 press coverage had settled on its current operating name, Perennial Autonomy, LLC.

The company's flagship product is Merops (military designation AS-3 Surveyor), a truck-launched, propeller-driven fixed-wing interceptor drone flying up to roughly 175 mph with a range of about 3-12 miles, designed to destroy incoming Shahed-type one-way attack drones at a fraction of the cost of a surface-to-air missile.

It also builds the Bumblebee ISR/kinetic quadcopter and the Hornet mid-range strike drone. Eric Schmidt is consistently described in reporting as the company's founder and sole known financial backer; no source found confirms he holds a formal CEO title, and no other executive has been publicly named as CEO.

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