Feature · checked 29 September 2026
The Shark Tank phone drone whose maker turned to defense drones.
PhoneDrone Ethos, a frame that let a smartphone fly as a following camera, won a deal from all five Shark Tank investors in 2015; its maker xCraft later told investors it intended to refund backers of a 2015 Kickstarter campaign it had not delivered to, and turned to enterprise and defense drones.
"Grant your smartphone access to the third dimension," PhoneDrone's Stompstart page said. The device, PhoneDrone Ethos, was a flying frame for a phone. Slot the handset in and it became an autonomous aerial camera, following its owner and taking video and pictures, steered from an Apple Watch or from a second phone or tablet. "It's a selfie stick that can fly and automatically follow you," the listing said. It linked to xcraft.io and placed the maker, xCraft, in Sandpoint, Idaho. The page, still marked public beta, was online when the Wayback Machine captured it in July 2019.
Four years earlier, the product had been on national television. On 23 October 2015 ABC aired xCraft's appearance on Shark Tank. DroneLife reported that the founders, JD Claridge and Charles Manning, pitched both of the company's Kickstarter projects: PhoneDrone and the X PlusOne, a drone that took off like a quadcopter and flew like a plane. According to xCraft's release of 2 November, all five investors joined a deal for 25 percent of the company in return for $1.5 million. The same release said PhoneDrone Ethos had passed its Kickstarter goal in 28 hours, that it was "the first drone that can be controlled by Apple Watch," and that backers could pledge $235 for one until the campaign closed on 30 November.
A year later the drone was still on its way. In October 2016 sUAS News reported the finalised design: sleeker and more durable, with a water- and shock-resistant bay for phones up to 5.5 inches, due in fall 2016 at $399, or $299 on pre-order.
What followed is recorded in xCraft's own reports to investors. In an annual report for its crowdfunding investors, posted on its website in October 2021, the company wrote that it intended "to refund approximately $470,000 to participants in our KickStarter Campaign that we conducted in 2015, to whom we did not deliver products." It does not say which campaign; xCraft had also taken the X PlusOne to Kickstarter. The report still listed "PhoneDrone Ethos" among its trademarks, while its products were a tethered drone, a hybrid vertical-takeoff aircraft and a small tactical drone. We could not confirm whether the refunds were paid.
xCraft's annual report filed with the SEC in 2026 calls the years from 2016 to 2022 a "Strategic Pivot to Enterprise & Defense," away from a consumer market it says had become dominated by low-cost Chinese manufacturers. Its telling of Shark Tank differs from the 2015 accounts: it dates the appearance to November 2015 and mentions only the X PlusOne. The filing says xCraft won a $1 million purchase order from Best Buy in 2025 and that "as of 2026, xCraft continues to operate and innovate from its Idaho headquarters." It also reports revenue of $178,008 for 2025, down from $504,452 in 2024, and says the company's financial statements raise substantial doubt about its ability to continue as a going concern.
The xcraft.io site now sells tethered and vertical-takeoff drones for public safety, surveying, defense, mining and construction. PhoneDrone appears on neither its product pages nor its legacy products page.