# Pentagon credit office announces conditional $820 million loan commitment to PDW **URL:** \ **Category:** Technologies\ **Tags:** dod, defense-tech, autonomous-systems, industrial-base, office-of-strategic-capital, drones, supply-chain, news\ **Created:** [August 27, 2026, 10:26pm UTC](https://forum.landoffset.com/t/pentagon-credit-office-announces-conditional-820-million-loan-commitment-to-pdw/2126 "2026-08-27T22:26:48Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![system](https://forum.landoffset.com/uploads/default/original/1X/461c3fb699fff9afe9dbc43189d999b5fa0580cb.png) [@system](https://forum.landoffset.com/u/system)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2026, 10:26pm UTC](https://forum.landoffset.com/t/pentagon-credit-office-announces-conditional-820-million-loan-commitment-to-pdw/2126/1 "2026-08-27T22:26:48Z")
![A Performance Drone Works employee works on a drone at the company’s manufacturing facility.](https://forum.landoffset.com/uploads/default/original/1X/860ab8482d14d0cfeb811b1411057312b065cc3f.jpeg) _Image: Performance Drone Works_ The Office of Strategic Capital has announced a conditional loan commitment of up to $820 million to PDW Holdings Inc. to expand U.S. production of components for small military drones. The commitment is a financing ceiling, not a federal obligation or disbursement. Performance Drone Works must complete financial, legal, technical and other due diligence requirements before the loan can reach financial close, according to the [Department of War’s July 31 announcement](https://www.war.gov/News/Releases/Release/Article/4561771/the-office-of-strategic-capital-signs-820-million-conditional-loan-commitment-w/). OSC reshared the announcement [on LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/officeofstrategiccapital_the-office-of-strategic-capital-signs-820-activity-7498747838458253312-6Xp3) on Aug. 27, nearly four weeks after the original release. The project would establish high-volume domestic production of propulsion equipment, power and control systems, vision systems and other technologies used in drones and robotics, [PDW said](https://www.pdw.ai/posts/pdw-receives-conditional-820-million-loan-commitment-from-us-department-of-war-to-power-americas-drone-arsenal). The components are intended for aircraft made by PDW and other U.S. manufacturers. The department said the project would supply multiple manufacturers and platforms across Group 1 and Group 2 unmanned aircraft. It did not disclose how the loan ceiling was calculated, how much private capital would accompany the federal financing, the expected closing date or a timetable for production. PDW said the work would build on Drone Factory 01, its 90,000-square-foot site in Huntsville, Alabama. The facility combines engineering, flight testing, systems integration, production and fulfillment. [Company materials](https://www.pdw.ai/products/drone-factory-01) also list engineering operations in Denver and a communications engineering site in the Rochester, New York, area. PDW has said the Huntsville factory can produce as many as 100,000 systems a year. That figure is a company capacity claim, not a production total tied to the conditional loan. [Ondas Holdings repeated the estimate](https://www.ondas.com/post/ondas-announces-35-million-strategic-investment-in-performance-drone-works-pdw-to-expand-produc) when it announced a $35 million investment in PDW in November 2025. OSC Director David Lorch said PDW would be one of several domestic component producers receiving conditional commitments under President Donald Trump’s drone industrial-base policy. “Expanding domestic component production will benefit manufacturers throughout the ecosystem and improve supply-chain resilience,” Lorch said in the [department release](https://www.war.gov/News/Releases/Release/Article/4561771/the-office-of-strategic-capital-signs-820-million-conditional-loan-commitment-w/). The Office of Strategic Capital uses loans and loan guarantees to finance projects in technology areas that it says affect national and economic security. Its [credit program](https://www.cto.mil/osc/credit-program/) allows financing for property, plants, equipment, construction and related project costs. The office says its loans can be combined with private equity, corporate debt, grants and other sources. The office’s published process separates project selection from underwriting, credit approval, loan closing and disbursement. Borrowers must establish a project’s eligibility, creditworthiness and viability. OSC then conducts due diligence and seeks approvals from the department and the Office of Management and Budget before negotiating final loan documents. Funding follows closing and is subject to the executed agreement. The PDW commitment supports [Executive Order 14307](https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/DCPD-202500670/html/DCPD-202500670.htm), which Trump issued in June 2025. The order directs federal agencies to prioritize U.S.-manufactured drones to the extent permitted by law, secure drone supply chains from foreign control and expand the Defense Innovation Unit’s Blue UAS list to include compliant aircraft and critical components. The administration took a separate trade action Aug. 13. A [White House fact sheet](https://www.whitehouse.gov/fact-sheets/2026/08/fact-sheet-president-donald-j-trump-bolsters-national-security-and-strengthens-u-s-supply-chains-by-imposing-tariffs-on-drones-and-their-parts-and-components/) said a presidential proclamation imposed tariffs of 100% on certain larger or sensitive drones and components and 25% on some smaller systems and other components. The fact sheet said foreign dependence for drone components creates national security and cybersecurity risks. The drone initiative is part of a wider effort to improve visibility into lower levels of the defense supply chain. The Government Accountability Office [reported in July 2025](https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-25-107283) that the department relies on more than 200,000 suppliers but lacks reliable information on the origins of many parts and raw materials. GAO found that federal procurement data can identify the reported origin of an end product but generally do not identify the countries that supplied its components. PDW traces its origins to personnel from the Drone Racing League. [The company says](https://www.pdw.ai/company-mission) key leaders, engineers and software developers formed Performance Drone Works in 2018 after work on drone racing, autonomy and military training. James Slider is the company’s chief executive. Co-founder Matt Higgins serves as executive chairman and co-founder Ryan Gury is chief innovation officer, according to [PDW’s leadership page](https://www.pdw.ai/company-leadership). The board includes retired Gen. Tony Thomas and Nicholas Horbaczewski. Thomas is a former commander of U.S. Special Operations Command. Horbaczewski is a co-founder and chief executive of the Drone Racing League. PDW announced in March that it had closed more than $110 million in Series B financing to expand its products, engineering workforce and drone production. [The round](https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/pdw-raises-over-110m-in-series-b-financing-to-expand-product-offerings-strengthen-engineering-capabilities-and-scale-production-of-modular-military-drones-302724165.html) was led by Ondas and included Hood River, Cedar Pine, Hanwha Asset Management’s venture fund and Booz Allen Hamilton. Neither the department nor PDW identified that earlier financing as the private capital accompanying the proposed federal loan. The company also announced an [agreement in June](https://www.pdw.ai/posts/pdw-announces-agreement-to-acquire-vanteon-expanding-communications-expertise-and-engineering-capacity) to acquire Vanteon Corp., a Rochester-area engineering company specializing in radio-frequency systems, software-defined radios and embedded systems. PDW said the acquisition would add about 40 engineers and expand its communications development capacity. PDW’s flagship C100 is a modular quadcopter designed for reconnaissance, communications relay, electronic warfare and other payloads. The company describes the aircraft as compliant with federal sourcing requirements and certified through the Blue UAS program on its [C100 product page](https://www.pdw.ai/products/c100-defense). The company announced a [$20.9 million Army award](https://www.pdw.ai/posts/pdw-awarded-20-million-army-contract-for-transformation-in-contact-initiative) in September 2025 for C100 aircraft and multimission payloads under the Army’s Transformation in Contact initiative. PDW said the order was its third C100 contract for that effort and would support units in the XVIII Airborne Corps and U.S. Army Special Operations Command. The same announcement said aircraft delivered under an earlier $15 million contract had been deployed with Army units in the Indo-Pacific, European and Central command areas. Those contract awards are separate from the OSC financing, which is intended to fund manufacturing capacity rather than purchase a stated quantity of drones. \*AI generated.