Doodle Labs, the Marina del Rey company that makes long-range radios and sensors for drones and robots, says surging military demand has it actively weighing a shift of some manufacturing back to the United States. The firm says its gear, built for high-throughput, long-range links in contested environments, is already deployed across commercial and defense programs. If Doodle Labs pulls the trigger on a domestic plant, it would be one more sign that Los Angeles’ growing defense-tech cluster is moving from lab benches to factory floors.
Founded as a spin-out of smartBridges, Doodle Labs has long split its operations between Singapore and Marina del Rey and started building up its U.S. footprint in 2018, company executives told the Los Angeles Business Journal. According to the Los Angeles Business Journal, the firm still manufactures primarily in Singapore but is considering shifting production to California or Texas to meet rising U.S. demand. Doodle Labs’ own product pages describe compact, high-throughput Mesh Rider radios built for streaming video from airborne platforms. The company presents anti-jamming features and long-range mesh networking as core advantages on its site, and it pitches those capabilities to both commercial robotics and defense customers.
Pentagon’s drone buying spree is hard to ignore
The Defense Department has launched a multi-phase Drone Dominance initiative that aims to field hundreds of thousands of low-cost, one-way drones and has already begun placing initial orders, putting direct pressure on suppliers to scale up. As reported by DefenseScoop, the program carries roughly $1.1 billion in procurement and uses competitive “gauntlets” to push prices down while rapidly boosting production volumes.
Market squeeze: money, scale, and factories
Industry forecasts have the numbers climbing quickly. Drone Industry Insights projects the global drone market will reach about $57.8 billion by 2030, expanding the addressable market for radios, sensors, and other critical components. Coverage of venture and defense funding also cites PitchBook analysts who describe manufacturing scale as “the next competitive battleground,” a shift that favors companies able to turn designs into repeatable factory output, as reported by C4ISRNet.
What a plant could mean for L.A.’s defense-tech scene
Local business and civic leaders say a U.S. factory would bring skilled manufacturing jobs and tighter links between Southern California suppliers and major defense primes. Andy Park, L.A. office managing partner at Ernst & Young Global and 2026 board chair of the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce, told the Los Angeles Business Journal that “dual-use is key” for drawing in the kind of capital that would make this kind of scaling possible.
What’s next for Doodle Labs
Doodle Labs says it has the capacity to scale production once the demand signal and capital line up, and it points to case studies and partner integrations on its site as proof that it is ready to build in volume. For now, the company is watching how procurement timelines and funding unfold under Pentagon initiatives before committing to specific factory plans or locations.
