NEW YORK, March 9, 2026, 10:42 EDT
Red Cat Holdings shares whipsawed Monday, losing ground after a public Drone Dominance leaderboard named 11 contenders for prototype contracts. SUAS News still counted the company’s Teal Drones unit in the mix, but the fresh list cooled a rally that had just sent the stock to its highest point in a year last week. By mid-morning, shares had fallen roughly 4%—opening at $16.08, peaking at $16.78, and then sliding to $14.74. On Friday, they’d tagged $18.78, the stock’s highest mark in the last year.
This turnaround is significant: Washington has stepped up buying low-cost, single-use attack drones—these are built to strike and not come back. Just last week, Reuters broke the news that the U.S. deployed a bargain attack drone in Iran, highlighting the rapid pace in the market Red Cat is targeting.
Red Cat is casting a wider net with investors. On March 2, the company announced Allen Control Systems had come aboard its Futures Initiative. The first Bullfrog counter-drone tech will be integrated into Blue Ops, Red Cat’s maritime arm—part of the company’s effort to stretch past small ISR drones into a full-scale, multi-domain lineup. “Equally advanced countermeasures” are needed to match the rapid spread of small unmanned systems, said Jason Gunter, Red Cat’s vice president of technology and innovation. Red Cat Holdings, Inc.
Jeff Thompson, the chief executive, put an even finer point on it over the weekend. Speaking to Schwab Network in an interview published Sunday, he suggested the Strait of Hormuz could stay under watch “for years to come.” Thompson also said, “Bring us that demand and we’ll ship it right away.” Schwab Network
Red Cat’s upcoming numbers could either validate the current narrative or blow holes in it. Back in January, the company flagged preliminary fourth-quarter revenue between $24 million and $26.5 million—a jump of roughly 1,842% from a year ago. For full-year 2025, the forecast landed at $38 million to $41 million. But as noted in an 8-K, those totals were unaudited and could shift when results drop on March 18.
Needham’s Austin Bohlig stuck with his Buy rating and $16 target on Red Cat after Innovation Day. Bohlig said he came away “meaningfully more impressed” by the multi-domain platform and more positive on the company’s 2026 outlook. Streetwise Reports, which recapped Bohlig’s call, noted Needham had investment-banking ties to Red Cat in the past year and currently makes a market in the shares. Streetwise Reports
Competition is thick. According to Reuters, the Pentagon’s drive for cheaper, faster drones has drawn big names like AeroVironment into the mix with a host of upstart firms. Kratos, for its part, has been running tests of budget-friendly attack drones over in Taiwan. Teal Drones, meanwhile, snagged a spot as one of just 25 suppliers brought into Gauntlet I.
Risks aren’t exactly hidden here. Red Cat’s most recent quarterly filing shows $9.6 million in revenue for the September quarter, gross profit at $637,502—just 7%—and a net loss from continuing operations totaling $16 million. For the first nine months of 2025, the company burned through $52.7 million in cash on operating activities. Bohlig said cash burn may stay high into the first half of 2026 as factory expansions continue. Red Cat has also cautioned that its January revenue could “materially differ” from audited results. Red Cat Holdings, Inc.
Right now, it’s still all about execution. Back in August, the Army listed Teal Drones and its Black Widow platform as suppliers for the Short Range Reconnaissance program. By February, Red Cat reported it had secured a fresh Black Widow order from an Asia-Pacific ally, set for delivery in 2026. How those deals shake out—specifically, whether they lead to ongoing, reliable output—is what investors are currently trying to figure out.
