Our Investment Director, Daria Yaniieva, has recently attended one of Europe’s largest defence exhibitions, Eurosatory 2024 in France. This year’s event, running from June 17 to 21 at the Paris-Nord Villepinte Exhibition Centre, saw more than 60,000 attendees and 2,000 exhibitors compared to 1,750 in 2022, and marked a 40% increase in registrations from the previous edition according to the Defensenews. Alongside major defence corporations as Saab, Airbus, BAE Systems, Rheinmetall, Lockheed Martin and more, there were 24 international pavilions including Ukrainian one.
Presenting our defence ecosystem in Paris
Our Investment Director Daria Yaniieva delivered a keynote speech on June 19 at Eurosatory Lab, where more than 60 startups presented their innovative solutions, focusing on disruptive technologies in the defence and security sector.
In her speech titled “Protecting the Future: Combining Ukraine’s Battlefield Needs with Business Opportunities,” she highlighted the rapid innovation in Ukraine’s defence technology sector driven by real-time battlefield needs and the critical role of partnerships and investment.
Daria’s speech covered private & public initiatives towards Defence Tech development in Ukraine. Among them, Defence Builder – accelerator launched with Labs support in April and cooperating with the Ministry of Defence of Ukraine. Daria highlighted the lack of sufficient international framework in legal&finance influencing the international cooperation for Ukrainian startups in defence. She also shared an overview of projects joined the first batch at Defence Builder and preparing for the Demo Day in a couple of months, namely:
- AI-controlled anti-drone turret
- Fiber optic communication
- Unnamed sea vehicle
- Drone with high payload capacity and enhanced communication resilience to EW
- Automatic target acquisition system
- Armoured fire support unmanned vehicle
- Mine-detecting drone
- Target acquisition and last mile piloting solution for aircraft-type drones
Investment attractiveness of Ukrainian defence innovations
Ukraine’s defence technology sector is attracting significant interest from international investors. Ukrainian companies signed seven major agreements at Eurosatory 2024, according to the Ministry of Strategic Industries of Ukraine. This includes a partnership with Hexadron – for the joint production of UAV complex, Exail – regarding test use of navigation systems on Ukrainian-made radars, Arquus – for the maintenance and modernization of armoured vehicles, and more. The French association GICAT and Thales are also cooperating with Ukrainian developers, demonstrating significant global interest and more opportunities towards joint business projects.
Major defence industry companies, such as British BAE Systems, an aerospace, defence and information security company, and German Rheinmetall, an automotive and arms manufacturer, are expanding their R&D activities in Ukraine. In particular, Turkish Baykar plans to build a new drone manufacturing plant near Kyiv, capable of producing 120 drones a year.
All of these developments emphasize that Ukraine is now a very attractive place to invest in defence technology.
Our participation in Eurosatory 2024, alongside many other defence-related events we joined in Q2, is another step towards expanding Ukraine’s defence technology sector and building bridges for effective international collaborations.
Ukrainian and international defence industries have much to offer each other, and synergistic cooperation will lead to overall defence capabilities growth, not solely in Ukraine, and enhanced security for the whole world.
