Innodata Expands Federal Defense Footprint With SHIELD Award

Innodata Inc. INOD has been selected by the U.S. Missile Defense Agency as an approved contractor under the Scalable Homeland Innovative Enterprise Layered Defense (SHIELD) program. This selection enables the company to compete for future task orders encompassing research, development, engineering, prototyping and operational support. The work will contribute to the advancement of critical missile defense systems in support of U.S. national security objectives.

The SHIELD program is part of the U.S. government’s broader Golden Dome homeland defense strategy, which aims to modernize and strengthen the nation’s layered missile defense capabilities. Being included on this contract signals that Innodata has met stringent technical, security and credibility requirements, positioning the company as a trusted partner for national security initiatives.

Through this award, Innodata is positioned to support mission-critical missile defense programs by delivering advanced AI and data engineering capabilities across research, development and operational phases. The selection strengthens the company’s presence in the federal defense market, expands its public-sector footprint and broadens its addressable opportunity, establishing a potential pipeline of multi-year, high-value task orders that could support sustained revenue visibility and long-term growth.

Innodata’s AI Growth Momentum

Innodata is accelerating its growth by strengthening relationships with large technology customers while expanding into high-value AI adjacencies. The company delivered record revenues of $62.6 million, representing 20% year-over-year organic growth and 7% sequential growth. Several existing hyperscaler relationships are expected to scale meaningfully in 2026, alongside the addition of multiple new big-tech customers with substantial AI training and evaluation budgets. Collectively, these engagements reinforce Innodata’s position as a critical partner across the AI data lifecycle.

Momentum is further driven by targeted investments in pretraining data, agentic AI and model safety, already generating multi-customer revenues. Innodata has launched a federal AI unit to serve U.S. defense and civilian agencies, expected to become a meaningful growth driver in 2026, while scaling its enterprise AI practice to embed generative AI into core workflows. Backed by a strong balance sheet and expanding customer relationships, the company is well-positioned for sustained growth across commercial, enterprise and government markets.

INOD’s Stock Price Performance

INOD stock has climbed 13.7% in the past month, outperforming the Zacks Technology Services industry’s 5.8% decline. This outperformance reflects accelerating demand from large technology customers, disciplined execution and a series of high-return strategic investments. Momentum has been further supported by increasing traction across enterprise AI, agentic AI and model safety services, leveraging Innodata’s differentiated, end-to-end AI lifecycle capabilities.

INOD’s Zacks Rank & Key Picks

Currently, Innodata carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).

Some better-ranked stocks from the Business Services sector are:

Bowman Consulting Group Ltd. BWMN sports a Zacks Rank of 1 (Strong Buy) at present. The company delivered a trailing four-quarter earnings surprise of 135.7%, on average. Bowman stock has gained 9.6% in the past six months. You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for Bowman’s fiscal 2026 sales indicates growth of 11.4%, while EPS indicates a decline of 0.8% from the prior-year levels.

AppLovin Corporation APP presently carries a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). The company delivered a trailing four-quarter earnings surprise of 15.3%, on average. AppLovin stock has surged 61.6% in the past six months.

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for APP’s 2026 sales and EPS indicates growth of 38.3% and 62.5%, respectively, from the year-ago period’s levels.

APi Group Corporation APG has a Zacks Rank of 2 at present. The company delivered a trailing four-quarter earnings surprise of 5.6%, on average. APi stock has gained 22.3% in the past six months.

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for APi’s 2026 sales and EPS indicates growth of 6.9% and 14.6%, respectively, from the prior-year levels.

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This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).

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