Innoviz Technologies, the Israeli automotive-grade LiDAR supplier that spent nearly a decade building solid-state sensors for BMW and Mobileye, has landed its first defense customer. The company said Wednesday it secured an order worth roughly $3.5 million for several hundred LiDAR units that will power counter-drone systems and perimeter-intrusion detection, with about half of the units set to ship by the end of 2026.
First Defense Order Under the Perciz Brand
The buyer was not named, and Innoviz declined to disclose the country or agency behind the deal. What the company did share is that it expects a substantially larger follow-on order once the first deployment proves itself in the field. The order runs through Perciz, the dedicated defense, homeland security and critical-infrastructure brand Innoviz launched in mid-2026 to route its automotive sensor platform into military applications. In roughly three months since the Perciz launch, Innoviz has stacked up integrator partnerships with Givon Defense for precision threat localization, Cogniteam for AI-based drone classification, AeroNous Solutions for command-and-control, and earlier deals with Kela Technologies, Drive Group and Regulus. It also added Maj. Gen. (Ret.) Yoav Har-Even, former CEO of Rafael Advanced Defense Systems, to its board.
Why LiDAR for Counter-Drone Work
Radar, cameras and radio-frequency sensors have long formed the backbone of counter-drone systems, but they typically produce position data that is only approximate — a gap that matters when the target is a small, low-signature drone that must be located and engaged within seconds. Innoviz says its solid-state LiDAR closes that gap by distinguishing a drone from background clutter and holding onto positional accuracy through darkness, dust, smoke, fog and glare — the conditions that routinely blind cameras. The pitch is not that Innoviz sells a complete weapon, but that it sells the underlying sensing layer other integrators build detection, classification and interdiction stacks on top of.
An Automotive-Grade Pedigree
Innoviz built its business supplying automotive-grade LiDAR to BMW, Volkswagen, Daimler Truck and Mobileye, and the company argues that pedigree matters in the defense market because its hardware has already been qualified against automakers' strict reliability standards rather than built as one-off prototypes. "Physical AI is redefining what machines can perceive, and in defense and homeland security, that shift is mission-critical," said Innoviz CEO Omer Keilaf. "Detecting a threat is just the first step. Knowing precisely where it is, in real time, in conditions that blind other sensors, is what could separate an alert from an effective response." The order, while small in absolute terms, marks the first commercial revenue Innoviz has booked from its defense pivot.
Reporting based on coverage from The Defence Blog and Innoviz Technologies.