Raven Industries was established in 1956 by James Smith, Paul (Ed) Yost, Duwayne Thon, and Joseph Kaliszewski to build research balloons for the United States Navy.

According to Tom Karako, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the balloons can serve as communication and datalink nodes, as trucks for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) to track airborne targets, such as hypersonic missiles, and as platforms for various weapons.

[9] In 2021, Raven was acquired by Case New Holland Industrial (CNHi), the second-largest OEM in the world that designs, manufactures and sells agricultural and construction machinery.

[10][11] What attracted CNHi, who had an annual revenue of $26 billion compared to Raven's $400 million, was the latter's Applied Technology division, which focused on autonomous equipment used in agriculture.

[11] It offers products and services such as automated tiller, harvester and spreader, tractor autonomy, data centralization, guidance and steering systems, spray applicators, and electronic displays.

[11] The company has added hundreds of jobs in Sioux Falls and established a cyber defense hub in collaboration with students and graduates from Dakota State University.

[14] Between 1984 and 2019, Raven Industries made hundreds of balloons and other inflatables for the annual Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, depicting characters such as Hello Kitty, Pikachu, Spider-Man, and Spongebob Squarepants.