Space-Eyes projects $135 million revenue by 2030, mostly government contracts
Space-Eyes founder and Chief Executive Jatin Bains signed Eric Trump to a two-year advisory deal on May 27. Under the agreement, Eric Trump is to provide “public and private endorsement” of the company to his contacts and offer general strategic guidance. The filing specifies that he will facilitate conversations using his “network of contacts.”
The stake is poised to be worth around $12 million based on the target price of the company’s planned public listing. Space-Eyes generated less than $1 million in revenue last year, and historically drew on satellite and other data to track ship movements and wildfire threats. It recently expanded into software designed to detect and counter drones.
Space-Eyes was founded in 2001 as Channel Logistics, offering services including maritime-threat analysis. It secured small government research and development contracts from time to time. As military leaders increasingly poured money into drones, Bains — a former sea captain turned entrepreneur — began developing software meant to detect, track, and counter them. The company said it has an active award from the Air Force Research Laboratory and has put its counterdrone technology through U.S. Army tests.
The advisory deal was signed on May 27, two months before Space-Eyes completed a merger agreement with a blank check company that valued the company at around $275 million. In the merger filings, the blank check company projected Space-Eyes’ revenue would grow from $370,000 in 2025 to $20 million in 2026 and $135 million by 2030. More than 90% of the company’s revenue in 2024 and 2025 came from the U.S. government.
Space-Eyes said in the filings that its success in the foreseeable future “will continue to depend to a significant degree on its ability to win government contracts, in particular from the DoD.”
The Space-Eyes deal fits into a broader pattern of the Trump sons taking stakes in defense and other government contractors. One drone company in which Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr. own shares said in securities filings it depends on the U.S. and Israeli governments for “substantially all of our business.” Donald Trump Jr. is an investor in another drone startup that recently disclosed it was in discussions with U.S. officials about receiving a government investment. His venture-capital firm invested in a rare-earths company that was awarded a $620 million government loan. The brothers have also taken stakes in companies involved in tungsten mining and nuclear energy, while growing their crypto holdings.
Bains said the appeal of hiring Eric Trump was his investments in other drone companies, which could provide helpful information and introductions within the sector. “There are a lot of relationships that we’ll be able to have access to,” Bains said. “You have to be in the ecosystem if you’re going to be able to solve big problems. When you get warm introductions to other drone companies, that helps us.”
Bains said Eric Trump wouldn’t be involved in procuring or negotiating any U.S. government contracts. “We’re not expecting any introductions to government customers,” Bains said. “I don’t see a conflict of interest.”
Jessica Tillipman, associate dean of government procurement law studies at George Washington University, said the agreement is unusual in its explicitness. “What’s remarkable about it is that it’s put in writing,” Tillipman said. An agreement like Eric Trump’s would be expected to trigger “the giant circle and red flag from the compliance department” at a traditional U.S. corporation, she said. The Trump sons’ stakes in contractors break with longstanding norms in which presidential families go to great lengths to avoid the appearance of any conflicts, she said.
A spokesperson for Eric Trump said he has no role in Space-Eyes’ “day-to-day operations, management, oversight or decision-making” and that he believes in the company’s technology. A White House spokeswoman said there were no conflicts of interest with the Trump sons’ investments. “President Trump only acts in the best interests of the American public,” she said. A spokesman for Donald Trump Jr. said he doesn’t interface with the federal government as part of his role with any company in which he invests.
While U.S. officials are generally not permitted to own stakes in government contractors without a waiver, the law doesn’t apply to their adult children, Tillipman noted.