Research · Living data · Updated 2026-07-17
The public defense universe — from prime contractors to the venture-backed "defense tech" names building autonomy, drones, and space-based systems.
Defense is a theme in the middle of a structural shift: rising global military budgets on one side, and a new wave of venture-backed "defense tech" companies going public on the other. NextTrack maps 103 public companies across the defense theme — the established prime contractors and the next-generation names building autonomy, drones, counter-drone systems, and space-based defense. The count refreshes on every rebuild.
| Metric | Live figure |
|---|---|
| NextTrack tracks | 103 defense-themed companies |
| Last updated | 2026-07-17 |
The theme splits cleanly into two very different populations. The **primes** are large, diversified contractors with multi-year program backlogs and predictable, cash-generative businesses — defensive in both senses of the word. The **defense-tech** names are newer, often recently public (some via de-SPAC), building software-defined systems: autonomous vehicles, drones, sensing, and space. They trade on contract wins and growth rather than dividends and backlog.
Across the 103 companies here, knowing which side of this line a ticker sits on tells you whether you're buying stability or growth-stage risk.
Defense revenue is ultimately downstream of government budgets, which are set by geopolitics rather than the business cycle. That makes the theme relatively uncorrelated with consumer-driven sectors, and it's a large part of the appeal in an uncertain macro environment. Elevated global tensions and sustained budget commitments underpin the primes' backlogs and open the door for the defense-tech entrants to win programs that were previously locked up.
Sort the 103-name list by market cap and the shape is a handful of very large primes at the top and a growing cohort of smaller, higher-growth defense-tech names below. The newer names carry execution and contract-concentration risk that the primes don't; the primes carry the valuation and slow-growth trade-offs that the newer names don't. The full ranked, sortable list is on the gated theme page.
Defense membership is drawn from a curated theme taxonomy mapped to companies and rolled up recursively across primes, defense-tech, drones, and space-defense sub-themes. Newly public defense-tech names are added as they list. Explore the interactive map on the [defense theme page](/themes/defense), or browse [all themes](/themes).
Explore all market themes · Space stocks: the new-space list · Nuclear energy stocks