INVESTIGATION: Eighteen days after Ottawa’s pick, a nameless fund buys into Draganfly

A nameless fund

September 28, five million

A U.S. fund that no one has named committed on September 28, 2026 to buy US$5 million worth of Draganfly shares.

Draganfly is a Saskatoon company. Ottawa had just picked it to supply drones to the Canadian military.

The release gives no name. It says “a leading U.S. Investment Fund.” Nothing more.

The fund has an amount. It has a price. It has no sign on the door.

Next to the ghost, a known name. Unusual Machines puts in the same sum. The total comes to US$10 million.

Thirty centimetres a side

At the end of this chain, there is a soldier.

The drone Draganfly wants to deliver, the Astiia, measures about 30 centimetres a side. It flies for 20 to 40 minutes, according to the company’s chief executive, Cameron Chell, quoted by the National Observer.

It fits in two gloved hands. You launch it. It hums. It heads out five to eight kilometres. It comes back, or it does not.

If it goes down, Chell says, no big deal. You send another one.

Whoever launches it will never know who owns the factory. He does not need to know. We do.

The ghost signs a cheque and keeps its name.

Eighteen days

Calgary, September 10

National Defence launched its Defence Drone Initiative on July 23. Applications closed on August 14.

Qualifying guaranteed no contract, the department said. Defence experience was not necessarily required. Security readiness was. It would be assessed.

On September 10, in Calgary, with Volodymyr Zelensky at his side, Mark Carney created a national defence drone marketplace.

He announced initial contracts worth up to $50 million. They are meant to multiply by ten the number of drones deployed by the Canadian Armed Forces.

Six suppliers. Beonyx. AVSS. Volatus. Twenty20 Insight. Objexis AI. Draganfly.

The Prime Minister’s Office is proud to have gone from launch to first contract in 50 days.

Tampa, September 28

Draganfly describes an initial five-year contract. 100 systems, with options for 4,900 more.

Eighteen days after Calgary, the release announcing its share offering carries another address. Tampa, Florida.

On September 10, a Canadian marketplace. On September 28, a capital raise datelined Florida.

Fifty days to choose, eighteen to open the share register.

In the United States only

No Canadian buyer

You have to read the release all the way down to the legal lines.

The offering covers 1,869,159 shares at US$5.35, the closing price on September 25.

Draganfly will offer and sell these securities in the United States only. No securities will be offered or sold to Canadian purchasers. That is how it is written.

The two placement agents are in New York and Minneapolis. The U.S. registration statement has been effective since February 25, 2026.

The Canadian base shelf prospectus dates from October 24, 2025. It serves as paperwork. Not as a sales window.

A rule, not a company

I want Draganfly to succeed. I say it before my questions, because they are not aimed at Saskatoon.

They are aimed at a rule. The one Ottawa applies, or does not apply, to the ownership of its so-called sovereign drone industry.

Here is how I read it: Ottawa defined the sovereign drone by factory and licence, never by capital.

Not one share offered to a Canadian buyer.

No buyer from here, by the very design of the offering.

Unusual Machines

Motors and components

Unusual Machines is listed in New York. Reuters describes it as known for its drone motors and other control components.

According to The Canadian Press, the company named Donald Trump Jr. to its advisory board in November 2024.

Donald Trump Jr. and his brother Eric have also backed the Israeli drone maker XTEND and Powerus, Reuters adds.

While the Trump family’s investments in defence companies raise concerns about conflicts of interest, the agency reports, this one lands in Saskatoon.

Nothing in the file accuses Draganfly, Unusual Machines or Donald Trump Jr. of any wrongdoing. I accuse them of none. Trump Jr. did not respond to Reuters.

Who supplies whom

The head of Unusual Machines, Allan Evans, says the investment will help it support Draganfly’s production growth and “deepen our supplier relationships.”

The sentence does not say who supplies whom.

Who will supply the Astiia’s motors?

Since the start of the year, Unusual Machines shares have climbed about 89%. Draganfly’s have fallen about 23%, according to Reuters.

One has the means to buy. The other needs capital.

Nothing illegal, and yet everything worth watching.

A leading fund

What we know

That leaves the other half. Five million without a face.

We know it is American.

We know it is putting in US$5 million.

We know it pays the same price as Unusual Machines, US$5.35 a share.

Draganfly calls it “leading.”

It was due to come in around September 29, according to the release, or around September 30, according to Reuters.

Its name, we do not know.

Three newsrooms, no name

Draganfly writes “a leading U.S. Investment Fund.” Reuters writes of a U.S. asset management company it does not name. The Canadian Press writes of an unnamed U.S. investment fund.

Three texts. Three phrasings. The same hole.

No name. No city. No known manager.

The hole is exactly the size of a name.

We know the cheque, never the hand.

Access for sale

The opening sentence

Let us reread the first sentence of the release. It says what the money is for.

The investment supports, Draganfly writes, its growing position in the U.S. defence ecosystem. It also gives access to strategic opportunities in international markets that Draganfly alone serves.

Access. The word is in the release’s summary line.

The next sentence cites, as context, significant milestones reached with the Canadian Armed Forces.

The Canadian contract as a selling point

In other words, Ottawa’s contract works as a selling point for raising capital in New York.

That is not illegitimate. It is how a small company finances itself.

Cameron Chell speaks of a convergence. Customer adoption. Government procurement. Domestic manufacturing. Defence autonomy. Strategic industry participation.

Allan Evans speaks of a strategic capability for America and its allies: building drones and components at scale.

Both are right. They are not talking about the same country.

If Draganfly alone serves certain markets, access to those markets now has an entry price. It is written in U.S. dollars.

Ottawa signs the contract, New York buys the access.

Six profiles, one blank

What the Prime Minister’s Office writes

The Prime Minister’s Office speaks of “sovereign” drone capabilities. It describes each supplier selected.

For Beonyx, it writes of a system designed, owned and manufactured in Canada.

For AVSS, manufacturing in Ontario and mostly Canadian components.

For Volatus, a platform manufactured in Montreal, with partners in the United Kingdom.

For Twenty20 Insight, a platform designed and manufactured in the United Kingdom, with Canadian service.

For Objexis AI, Canadian intellectual property.

For Draganfly, proven Australian technology, produced in Canada under licence.

For none of them does it publish the list of shareholders.

Six profiles. Six origins. No list of owners.

The word owned

Owned. The word is in the release. It does not appear on Draganfly’s line.

On July 23, National Defence wrote that sovereign capability may include licensed manufacturing and partnerships with trusted allies.

It is an honest definition. It talks about factories, licences and allies. It does not talk about shareholders.

Sovereign, here, means made, not owned.

Ownership and control

The July 23 line

And yet the same National Defence page says something else, further down.

Security will be built into the whole initiative, it writes. Cybersecurity. Supply-chain integrity. Ownership and control. Personnel security. The sourcing of sensitive technologies.

Ownership and control. The words are there, in black and white.

A law that allows it

The Investment Canada Act allows a national security review of the acquisition of all or part of an entity. So say the guidelines of Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada, revised on March 5, 2025.

Among the factors, they list effects on defence capabilities and on the defence industrial base.

Voluntary notification is possible. Without it, the minister keeps five years after implementation to step in, according to the same guidelines.

The law allows it. Nothing public says it was used here.

Who looked?

The National Observer asked Ottawa how suppliers would be vetted and what oversight would apply. It had received no answer when it published, on September 17.

The rule exists, and its use leaves no trace.

Saskatoon and Burnaby

Twenty-eight years ahead

Here is what unsettles my reading, and I am publishing it.

Draganfly sold its first commercial drone to the RCMP in 1998, according to Cameron Chell. It manufactures in Saskatoon and Burnaby. It plans a plant in Alberta by the end of 2027.

It has supplied drones to Ukraine, for mapping, humanitarian aid and other missions, Reuters reports. The Astiia has been tested over Ukrainian battlefields, according to Chell.

For years, he says, the Canadian defence market was small and public money scarce. The company worked mostly with American defence contractors. It supplied the U.S. Army, Air Force and Navy.

The capital that never came

In other words, Saskatoon held on with American customers while Ottawa bought almost nothing.

Defence spending topped $63 billion in 2025–2026, according to the National Observer. Canada reached NATO’s 2% target for the first time since the late 1980s. Public money is arriving. Late.

That is true. It does not change the question.

A so-called sovereign industry that can only raise money elsewhere is Ottawa’s problem. Not Saskatoon’s.

Saskatoon held on alone for too long.

Positioning, not size

Ten million, a detail

Draganfly’s answer is solid. I give it in full.

US$10 million is not much. In February, the company raised US$50 million, according to Reuters.

The price is the market price. The buyers come from an allied country. The plant stays in Saskatoon. Support stays in Canada, by contract.

Ottawa’s contracts require training, maintenance, repair and sustainment to take place in Canada, the Prime Minister’s Office specifies.

Cameron Chell sums it up. This investment is “about positioning, not size.”

Whose positioning

Exactly.

Allan Evans said it himself. He wants to support Draganfly’s production and deepen supply relationships. That is a place in a chain, not a portfolio return.

Size does not decide the rule. Position does.

A small cheque can open a big door. It only has to come in at the right spot.

Small cheque, big door.

The eye today, the strike tomorrow

Six priority uses

The Astiia is an eye. It watches. It is not designed to drop explosives or crash into targets, Chell says.

But National Defence set six priority use cases for its initiative on July 23.

Low-cost reconnaissance drones. Uncrewed ground vehicles. Maritime surface and underwater systems. Standardized drone munitions and payloads. Counter-drone interceptors. Deep precision strike systems.

The same marketplace

For deep strike, it speaks of a sovereign Canadian long-range capability. No acquisition decision has been announced.

The door opened today for a camera could serve tomorrow for an explosive payload.

The ownership rule nobody writes for an eye will have to be written for a strike. Better to write it first.

Write the rule for the eye, before the strike.

Eleven days later

September 17

On September 17, the National Observer published an interview with Cameron Chell.

“We have to stand on our own two feet,” he said.

Then: “We cannot rely on the United States to be that for us.”

He added that plenty of people can build 10 drones that work. Ten thousand is another matter. They all have to work.

September 28

Eleven days later, his company opens its capital to two American buyers. To them alone.

I do not see hypocrisy in that. I see a system.

A Canadian chief executive says we cannot count on Washington. He raises his money where the money is. Ottawa buys 100 drones. The American market buys shares.

The soldier who launches the Astiia into a February wind will know nothing of this. His fingers will feel the cold plastic. Not the cap table.

And yet that table could decide, five years from now, who chooses the next plant.

Never count on Washington, except to raise money.

The Brave1 model

Four hundred suppliers

The Canadian marketplace is modelled on Brave1, Ukraine’s defence technology cluster, according to the Prime Minister’s Office.

Nearly 400 “trusted” Canadian suppliers qualify. Canada’s allies will get privileged access.

The Armed Forces have about 2,000 drones, according to the National Observer. Ottawa wants an industry able to produce millions of them within two years.

Fast, and vetted

Olena Kryzhanivska, of the Canadian Global Affairs Institute, tells the National Observer that no one knows who will place the orders, how suppliers will be vetted or who will review the purchases.

The Ukrainian system, she notes, has drawn criticism for favouritism and personal connections.

She calls it “a very tough balancing act.” The faster things move, the more each added check slows them down.

Canada does not use drones on Ukraine’s scale, or under the same pressure, she adds. Ottawa has to decide how much review it needs without sacrificing speed.

She is right. Speed is a wartime virtue. A written rule is another.

Moving fast is no excuse for moving without a written rule.

Three blanks

The name, the stake, the review

At the end of this file, three blanks remain.

The first: the fund’s name.

The second: the share of Draganfly’s capital that Unusual Machines and the fund will hold after closing. The release does not give it.

The third: a review by Ottawa on ownership and control grounds. Nothing public says a word about one.

Three blanks. Three questions. One window to answer them. Ottawa.

The word sovereign

Here is what this offering reveals. Ottawa wrote its sovereignty in factories, licences and services. It did not write it in shareholders.

If the fund ever steps out of the shadows…

I am not asking anyone to refuse American capital. I am asking to know who it is.

Three blanks add up to one public question.

A name to demand

Two named authorities

Closing was set for around September 29, according to Draganfly, or around September 30, according to Reuters.

The release names two authorities to satisfy. The Canadian Securities Exchange. The Nasdaq. It names no other.

On September 10, Ottawa promised trusted suppliers. On September 28, one of those suppliers welcomed a shareholder nobody names.

Trust, here, rests on a blank line.

What Ottawa needs to know

Before the next drone order, who at National Defence will read the list of its suppliers’ shareholders?

The soldier will launch his drone either way.

The name can wait a long time.

A nameless fund, and not one buyer from here.

Sources:

Primary Sources:

• Draganfly — US$10 million strategic investment, September 28, 2026
• Prime Minister of Canada — defence drone marketplace and six suppliers, September 10, 2026
• National Defence — Defence Drone Initiative, July 23, 2026

Secondary Sources:

• BNN Bloomberg (Reuters) — Unusual Machines and a U.S. asset manager invest in Draganfly, September 28, 2026
• Canada’s National Observer — Draganfly joins Canada’s drone program, September 17, 2026
• The Canadian Press — Draganfly wins a US$10 million investment, September 28, 2026