Aviv Shapira
Personal: Married + 3, lives in Tel Aviv
Professional: Founder and CEO of drone company Xtend
Childhood and family: I was born and raised in Rishon Lezion to a mother who was a teacher and a father who was CEO of various companies including Aurec, (which gave birth to Amdocs and Golden Pages). He was a strong careerist.
The first business: At the age of 10 my grandmother bought me a parrot for my birthday. So I bought another parrot, made a huge cage in the yard with nests. I had hundreds of parrots, and started selling.
Relocation: In sixth grade, we went on a four-year relocation to St. Louis in the US, as part of my father's work. It was an amazing experience. Abroad, I changed classes every year, and when we returned, I had to learn Hebrew all over again. Despite this, I got good grades that led me to study for the IDF aeronautics and space program at the Technion at the age of 18. I graduated with a B.Sc honors.
Army: I was a university graduate in the Air Force, for six years in the missile testing unit. The service was amazing because they let me, a 22-year-old boy, conduct missile tests, command a huge hall, with hundreds of people. I was the youngest test director in the Air Force.
Defense companies: After military service, I worked for less than a year as a missile engineer at Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI). From there I moved to Elbit Systems and then relocated to London, to Thales, a UK company that developed an advanced drone with Elbit for the British army.
Winning an Emmy: While working at Thales, I founded two ventures. One of them was Flat Club, a competitor to Airbnb. The other was Replay, which dealt with virtual reality in sports. The idea was born in a London pub during the 2012 Olympics. My friend Oren Haimovich-Yogev and I were watching a soccer game, and suddenly he said: Think how cool it would be to see the game through the goalkeeper's eyes. I'm an optimistic entrepreneur, so I immediately told him: Come on, let's do it. We managed to build a very special company, which also earned us two Emmy Awards for best technology in television.
The exit: Replay Technologies was a special company. It didn't solve any problems, it didn't have a business model, it didn't even have an ecosystem because it was a VR company in a world where VR didn't exist yet, and yet it was sold to Intel for almost $200 million. After the acquisition, I stayed for about three years, founded Intel Sports and managed about 350 employees. I was also involved in the acquisition of two companies.
Xtend The next step was to start a gaming company, which was designed to provide a convenient control platform for drone pilots. As an aeronautical engineer and aviation enthusiast, I really wanted to fly drones, but I had no coordination. We built an operating system that told the drone, using machine learning, what to do, for example, "go through the window." My late grandmother, then 99 years old, managed to fly a racing drone.
Turning point 1: In 2019, we went down to help our friends on the Gaza border, who were dealing with incendiary balloons. After intercepting two balloons and a kite, we realized we had a solution. The army took down 4,000-5,000 incendiary balloons with our solution. As a result, we founded a defense company called Xtend, which produces an operating system. The defense company was launched as a US company, which has brought in almost $100 million in contracts to date. At the time, we had not yet looked at the Israeli market, but everything changed on October 7.
Turning point 2: On October 7, we made a decision to transfer our entire inventory of drones in the US to the IDF, which went from a customer to a partner almost overnight. For example, we managed to produce a swarm of drones for them that open doors. It saves lives.
The numbers: So far we have raised about $90 million, employ 150 people, and are deployed in 32 countries. We have tens of millions of dollars in revenue from ten products, including basic and advanced AI-driven attack drones, indoor drones, robotic dogs, and palm-sized surveillance drones. Our software allows anyone to operate complex missions with an average training time of three and a half minutes.
Foot in the door Last month we won a tender to supply 5,000 attack drones to the IDF. I estimate that this deal serves as a test, after which we will receive an order for 50,000 and then 200,000. In Ukraine, the forecast this year is for 4.5 million drones. We offered a very low price to win and be deployed throughout the IDF. This is the only way I know to develop the right technology for units in the field.
Looking to the future: One of the goals is a flotation for Xtend in the US. I don't want to sell and relinquish the reins. This time I want access to an unlimited amount of money. We would also like to take the technology to the worlds of police and security.
Published by Globes, Israel business news - en.globes.co.il - on September 4, 2025.
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