In 2018, a group of Silicon Valley entrepreneurs and US military veterans identified a glaring vulnerability in America’s defense posture: The country was not prepared to counter the growing threat of drones. That realization led to Epirus, a venture-backed defense technology start-up positioning itself as a pioneer in electromagnetic warfare.
Epirus’ flagship system, Leonidas, is a high-power microwave (HPM) system designed to disable drones and other electronic threats by pushing out bursts of energy. While HPM technology itself is not new, Epirus has reimagined its application by using gallium nitride semiconductors instead of the bulky vacuum tubes that power legacy systems.
The result is a scalable, mobile, and fieldable solution that is America’s only operational HPM.
Leonidas can be mounted on vehicles, aircraft, or even platforms like Anduril’s Roadrunner drone. It is software-defined and built on a phased array architecture, allowing operators to tailor its range and efficiency to mission requirements. With a sweet spot of around two kilometers, the system can neutralize threats at both range and altitude by transmitting long-pulse microwave energy across multiple frequencies, scrambling the electrical systems of drones so that they fall out of the sky.
No golden bullet
Speaking to Defense & Tech by The Jerusalem Post, Epirus executives were quick to emphasize that Leonidas is not a “golden bullet.”
Like Israel’s layered air defenses, counter-drone defense requires a layered approach, combining kinetic interceptors, jamming, and directed energy, such as high-powered lasers and microwave systems.
But unlike the other layers of defense, Leonidas has the ability to take down thousands of drones at the same time. Any drone caught within the energy pulse, whether signal-jammed or fiber-optic controlled, will be overwhelmed by voltage.
“The drone threat is so serious and it is unlike anything we’ve faced before. Cruise missiles and other threats resulted in existing defense systems that did not scale well against drones,” Michael Hiatt, the company’s CTO told D&T.
Epirus is a “big believer in layered defense. Drones make the entire threat landscape much harder because they are more difficult to detect and intercept,” Hiatt explained, adding that “even advanced air defense systems with limited magazine depth sometimes have to do triage math and decide which drones to let through because there’s no population underneath.”
The company sees Leonidas as a potential critical link in US President Donald Trump’s Golden Dome air defense architecture, offering protection against low-altitude drone threats like Group 1 and Group 2 drones.
“Our system doesn’t target a drone, it targets a volume of space. We can saturate the sky with weaponized electromagnetic energy and defeat an unlimited number of drones simultaneously,” Hiatt explained, adding that the company’s technology “creates no collateral damage, no bullets, no rockets, and that provides the opportunity to be that final defensive layer against the very serious drone threat.”
From prototypes to deployment
Despite its power, Leonidas does not pose risks to anything walking or flying through the beam, Hiatt told D&T. The company emphasizes that the system was designed to “protect the protector."
The US Army has already purchased six Leonidas systems known as the “Integrated Fires Protection Capability High-Power Microwave” (IFPC-HPM) system, while the Marine Corps has acquired two, though all are still in prototype stages.
Epirus, now a 200-person company with offices in California and Washington, prides itself on blending the speed and innovation of Silicon Valley with the operational insight of military veterans.
Many of its employees are former service members who understand what soldiers need and how to design intuitive systems. The company describes itself as “neo-prime,” a new breed of defense contractor unburdened by bureaucracy and red tape.
Global interest
Until 2025, Epirus was restricted from exporting Leonidas internationally. That has changed, and several countries have already expressed interest. Ukraine, widely regarded as the world’s premier test bed for defense systems, has been a target for deployment, though security concerns have complicated the process.
D&T has understood the systems have been deployed to the Indo-Pacific and the Middle East for testing, with a major army field trial expected to determine the pace of future scaling.
Though Leonidas is land based, Epirus is also exploring naval applications, though integration poses challenges. Any shipboard system must be carefully designed to avoid interfering with onboard electronics.
The company is also building a medium-sized, highly mobile system for trucks and boats; one that can fire on the move. The company’s end goal is a system that is fully autonomous.
“The technology is very scalable, we can build large static systems with long reach, or small mobile systems that go wherever the threat is,” Hiatt noted.
Epirus represents a rare fusion of venture capital, Silicon Valley innovation, and military pragmatism. By addressing a critical gap in drone defense, the company has positioned itself as the only operational HPM provider in the United States.
With upcoming field tests and growing international interest, Leonidas could soon become a cornerstone of modern layered defense systems.