Even GoPro is all about defense

Want to make money? Start building data centers. Or build batteries to power data centers. Or: focus on defense.

This isn’t financial advice, but it’s certainly what seems to be attracting public markets and private investors lately. Ford’s nascent energy storage business — which is a fraction of Tesla’s size and won’t be ready until next year — has helped push its stock higher than it has been in years. Redwood Materials has raised $425 million from major companies like Google and Nvidia by focusing on energy storage in data centers. Cerebras just completed one of the most important IPOs of 2026.

Investment in defense startups continues to pour in, with Anduril raising another $5 billion this week. Any company that has little chance of seizing government contracts seems to be trying to do just that.

Which brings us to the GoPro.

The action camera company has survived a lot over the years. For a while during the 2000s, the term “GoPro killer” was almost as popular as “Tesla killer” or “iPhone killer,” with people claiming that everything from TomTom’s action camera to Google’s Clips (remember those?) would dethrone the California company that invented the category.

However, survival doesn’t necessarily equal success, and GoPro has struggled recently. Sales were down, losses were up, and its stock price was essentially flat at around $1 two years ago. So, it’s surprising that last month GoPro announced a plan to “explore defense and aerospace market opportunities.”

It makes sense for a company that combines top-level image quality with durability enough to withstand a motorcycle crash or a fall from space. And the axis He was Enough to nearly double the company’s stock price for a few days. But this too has fallen back to the ground. Apparently the “defensive gimbal” idea isn’t as bulletproof as GoPro cameras, after all.

You can probably guess where this is headed. GoPro announced Thursday that it has hired investment bank Houlihan Lokey to help evaluate a “potential sale and other strategic alternatives.” The company’s board said it had recently received “numerous unsolicited inbound strategic inquiries from parties across various sectors including defence, consumer and financial”, which is a lot of words to effectively say: “Oh”.

This isn’t the first time GoPro has considered a sale; Founder and CEO Nick Woodman had it briefly on the table in 2018.

But things are now definitely more serious for the company. Not only are its finances deteriorating, but last month the company announced it would lay off a quarter of its workforce, which has already shrunk to just over 600 workers after hiring as many as 1,500.

GoPro has been a technology darling for 15 years. But like many of us, she now finds herself navigating a more volatile world. It should come as no surprise that the Pentagon’s massively bloated budget seems like a viable path through this crisis.