Space-Eyes founder and CEO Jatin Bains agreed to take Space-Eyes public through a merger with McKinley Acquisition Corp., valuing the post-merger business at $638 million, according to Reuters and a July 31st transaction announcement. Space-Eyes generates about $1 million in annual revenue, Reuters reported, putting future defense contracts rather than existing sales at the center of the valuation.
Bains has spent decades in maritime operations and supply chains. A partner biography credits him with 40 years of experience and the creation of Space-Eyes' CATE threat-evaluation system. Government contractor records trace Space-Eyes to Channel Logistics, a business established in 2001 that developed software for maritime threat assessment.
That history explains Space-Eyes' starting point. SeaWatch, Space-Eyes' maritime intelligence product, combines satellite and sensor data to track vessels, including ships that disable conventional identification systems. Bains and chief operating officer Dylan Monroe have since widened the pitch into counter-drone defense, wildfire detection and geospatial intelligence across land, sea and air.
Eric Trump, the son of President Donald Trump, recently became Space-Eyes' third-largest private investor, Reuters reported. The official announcement identifies Trump as an investor and strategic adviser. Reuters reported that he also introduced potential board candidates.
The appointment gives Bains a direct connection to the president's family while Space-Eyes pursues federal security work and expands its Washington presence. Space-Eyes announced a Washington office in January to support government partnerships and contracting activity.
A valuation built on contracts Space-Eyes has yet to win
The transaction announcement gives Space-Eyes a $638 million pro forma equity value and a $370 million enterprise value. Using Reuters' estimate of about $1 million in annual revenue, the enterprise value is roughly 370 times current annual sales. The comparison is approximate, but it captures how much growth is embedded in the deal price.
Reuters reported that Space-Eyes is negotiating potential contracts worth about $35 million over five years. Existing awards are generally worth $300,000 to $400,000 annually, according to the report. Negotiations are not signed backlog, and Space-Eyes would need a sharp increase in contract size and deployment volume to support the valuation.
Potential work includes monitoring drug trafficking in the Caribbean, supporting defense operations in the Middle East and detecting drones used to carry contraband into U.S. prisons, Reuters reported. Space-Eyes also plans to sell to commercial operators, including cruise lines and data centers.
Space-Eyes says its CATE AI engine combines radar, radio-frequency, electro-optical, infrared and satellite feeds into a single operational picture. Space-Eyes describes the system as sensor-agnostic, allowing customers to use existing detection hardware instead of replacing it. Morpheus applies that data-fusion layer to detecting, identifying, tracking and responding to drones.
The strategy places Space-Eyes between sensor manufacturers and the analysts or autonomous systems that act on their data. Monroe described the thesis more bluntly in a March interview with Refresh Miami: "Hardware detects. We make sense of it."
The $251.7 million cash figure is a ceiling
Space-Eyes and McKinley said the merger could provide up to $251.7 million in gross proceeds. That figure combines $176.7 million held in McKinley's trust with as much as $75 million from private financing. It assumes McKinley shareholders do not redeem their shares for cash before the merger closes.
The private financing also arrives in stages. Only $5 million is scheduled for the initial closing after McKinley files the merger registration statement. Up to another $70 million would follow at subsequent closings, subject to conditions.
The financing consists of senior secured convertible notes carrying 10% annual interest and maturing in 2031. The notes will have a first-priority security interest in substantially all of Space-Eyes' tangible and intangible assets. The agreement also calls for warrants with a $12 exercise price and shares equal to 9.9% of McKinley's post-merger outstanding common stock, with some of those shares available to satisfy obligations under the notes.
Those terms make the PIPE different from conventional equity capital. Space-Eyes gains access to growth funding, while the financing introduces interest costs, security claims and potential dilution. Redemptions by McKinley shareholders could further reduce the cash delivered at closing.
McKinley raised $150 million in its August 2025 initial public offering and another $22.5 million when underwriters exercised their overallotment option, according to McKinley's annual report. The SPAC reported $175.1 million of Class A shares subject to redemption as of December 31st, 2025.
From government-funded R&D to production
Space-Eyes has spent much of its history as a research-and-development contractor. Federal award records identify Defense Department work on maritime moving-target analytics using multiband satellite data. An earlier Air Force small-business award funded Space-Eyes' maritime intelligence engine.
Space-Eyes had raised $5.76 million and expanded from 15 to 35 employees by March, according to Refresh Miami. Space-Eyes said at the time that its software fused information from more than 75 sources and that it planned to operationalize its counter-drone capabilities throughout 2026.
Bains now plans to use third-party manufacturers to scale deployments without building a traditional defense manufacturing operation, Reuters reported. That approach supports the software-style economics Space-Eyes is selling to investors, though government procurement, hardware integration and field deployment still determine when revenue is recognized.
Reuters reported that Space-Eyes modeled its approach on Palantir, which sells software and data systems to governments and commercial customers. Palantir reported a 60% adjusted operating margin for the first quarter of 2026. Space-Eyes is invoking those economics while operating at a much earlier commercial stage.
The merger is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2026, subject to shareholder and regulatory approvals. The post-merger Space-Eyes plans to trade on Nasdaq under the ticker CUAS. If the transaction closes, Bains will gain a public balance sheet for the move from prototypes and smaller research awards into production contracts. The deal price assumes that transition happens quickly.