Duke Robotics Taps Rafael and SpearUAV Veteran as Next CEO
Duke's incoming CEO, Yiftach Kleinman, spent more than a decade at the maker of the Iron Dome and Trophy system, then scaled a loitering-munitions startup into a buyout. Now he is stepping in to lead a freshly Nasdaq-listed drone firm that is leaning harder into defense.
The executive who spent more than a decade inside Rafael Advanced Defense Systems, then ran an Israeli loitering-munitions startup through to a buyout by one of the largest companies in the category, is taking the top job at a Nasdaq small-cap drone maker. Last week, Duke Robotics Corp. (Nasdaq: DUKR) named Yiftach Kleinman as its incoming Chief Executive Officer, effective no later than September 8, 2026. For a micro-cap that has spent most of its life off the radar, the choice reads as a statement of intent. Just as Duke steps onto a national exchange with fresh capital behind it, the company is handing its top job to an executive shaped at the senior levels of the defense industry, a signal of how it intends to weight the defense side of a business that already spans military and civilian drones.
Kleinman's defense résumé is unusually deep for a company of Duke's size. He spent more than a decade at Rafael Advanced Defense Systems, the state-owned Israeli firm behind some of the country's best-known defense programs, including the Iron Dome and David's Sling air-defense systems and the Trophy active protection system. As Deputy General Manager of Rafael's Land and Naval Division, he oversaw a multinational portfolio of subsidiaries and, by the company's account, helped drive campaigns generating more than $1.5 billion in contracts. He also led Rafael's Vehicle Protection Suites, the division behind Trophy, the active protection system that shields armored vehicles from rockets, anti-tank missiles and other incoming threats and is now in service on the IDF's Merkava tanks, the U.S. Army's M1 Abrams, and several European NATO platforms including the Leopard 2.
Kleinman then moved to SpearUAV, an Israeli developer of AI-based, capsule-launched loitering munitions, where he served first as Deputy CEO and later as CEO. Under his leadership, SpearUAV moved from early-stage development into commercial traction. In December 2024 it announced its first major contract: a $20 million order for its flagship VIPER 300 loitering munition, with options that could lift the total toward $60 million. The product line expanded in parallel, adding the VIPER I counter-drone interceptor and the naval VIPER 750.
That trajectory ended in an exit. In November 2025, UVision Group, a global leader in loitering munitions, completed the full acquisition of SpearUAV, capping a relationship that had begun with a UVision strategic investment roughly four years earlier. Terms were not disclosed.
What gives that exit added context is where UVision sits today. The company, led by CEO Dr. Ran Gozali, a near three-decade Rafael veteran, signed a $982 million five-year contract with U.S.-based Mistral for the U.S. Army in October 2025, and has reportedly engaged JPMorgan to lead a Nasdaq initial public offering. Calcalist's CTech reported in March 2026 that UVision was in pre-IPO talks with Israeli institutional investors at an implied valuation of roughly $2.5 billion to $3.5 billion, and more recent coverage has referenced a target closer to $5 billion. Those figures describe UVision's prospective listing, not Duke, and remain unconfirmed reports rather than completed transactions. They do, however, illustrate the caliber of the business Kleinman helped build and exited.
The operating and dealmaking experience now joining Duke's leadership arrives at a pivotal moment. The company recently uplisted to the Nasdaq Capital Market, where its shares and warrants began trading on May 15, 2026 under the symbols DUKR and DUKRW, and closed a $9.2 million underwritten public offering days later. Management has described the period as an inflection point, pointing to three commercially validated platforms: the Insulator Cleaning Drone for high-voltage utility maintenance, the AEROTRACE AI-powered aerial intelligence system, and the Bird of Prey stabilized weapons drone, marketed by Elbit Systems Land Ltd., a unit of one of Israel's largest defense companies. Elbit reported $7.94 billion in revenue for 2025 and an order backlog of $28.1 billion, and in August 2025 won a $1.635 billion five-year European defense contract covering long-range precision-strike artillery-rocket systems and a broad spectrum of unmanned reconnaissance and loitering aerial combat systems.
The Bird of Prey is the clearest link between Duke's existing business and Kleinman's background. Developed by Duke and marketed by Elbit under the Bird of Prey brand, the stabilized weapons drone has been deployed by the Israel Defense Forces during the "Iron Swords" war and was featured in an August 2025 news report on the IDF's advanced drone units, where the broadcast described the systems as operating with "surgical precision," silently identifying, targeting and neutralizing threats while keeping soldiers out of harm's way. Duke has reported its first royalty revenues from Elbit on initial Bird of Prey sales, marking the transition from development collaboration to active commercial deployment. The system places Duke in the tactical-drone segment where Kleinman has spent his career, and in appointing him the company appears to be signaling it intends to push that segment harder. Kleinman echoed as much in the appointment announcement, saying he is "aiming to expand the Company's defense footprint, accelerate its commercial platforms, and create lasting value for its shareholders, customers, and partners."
With outgoing CEO Yossef Balucka staying on as President to run the commercial and civilian side and a defense-industry operator stepping into the CEO seat, Duke is signaling continuity on one track and added depth on the other. Kleinman has done this trajectory before, at a company that ended up sold to a category leader now in talks with JPMorgan about a Nasdaq listing reported in the billions. Whether that is the right reference class for what Duke can become, on a base of three commercially validated platforms and a fresh capital structure, is exactly the question his appointment now puts on the table.
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