Good afternoon from Resilience Media

Late last week, the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense introduced TrophyLab, a platform which allows partners to study captured Russian technology. Beyond having an excellent name, this creates an unparalleled opportunity for the governments of Ukraine’s allies, research institutions, and defence manufacturers to understand how the adversary operates. Read more from Resilience Media Reporter Luke Smith in our Dispatches from Ukraine section below.

POLITICS: After the whirlwind British politics experienced last week, the UK has a new secretary of defence, Dan Jarvis. In an statement seemingly timed to maintain confidence in the UK as a reliable partner, the UK announced it is backing Ukraine’s drone industry with a 150,000-drone order. Jarvis shared the news in his first appearance at NATO. Expeditions Partner Sam Burrell analysed the implications of the John Healey and Al Cairns resignations from a defence investor perspective.

DEALS: The defence tech investment drum beat continued last week, with French-based Alta Ares and Comand AI, as well as Lithuanian startup PDKinematics, announcing funding rounds. BAE Systems increased its footprint across the defence tech ecosystem, putting money into both Expeditions and Lakestar. We break down the details in our Deals section below. There were also several partnerships announced in the last week, which are strong signals in the industry. We delve into Alpine Eagle-Origin Robotics agreement, as well as the Saronic-Castelion program in our Partnerships section below.

GUEST POSTS: From the Murray Lab at MIT, Said Warner and David Marks co-authored a deep dive into the economics of war, specifically the role credit markets have in shaping global power and war.

RESILIENCE CONFERENCE: We announced more speakers for Resilience Conference London. Hamutal Meidor, President of Kela Technologies, Eliot Pence, CEO of Dominion Dynamics, and Nathan Nwachuku, CEO of Terra will join the programme on 5–6 October. Together they represent the rise of a new generation of defence companies built around artificial intelligence, autonomy, and software-defined capabilities. As warfare evolves and militaries seek faster, more adaptable solutions, new entrants are reshaping how defence technologies are developed, deployed and scaled.

Elsewhere on Resilience Media:

• The world according to Ragnar Sass
• In Kyiv, naval drone developers look beyond the kamikaze era
• NATO Innovation Fund appoints Nur Özdemir as its newest partner
• France moves to boost its military budget with €36B
• Project Q launches passive surveillance sensor kit for contested environments
• [VIDEO] Can AI save a satellite before it fails? PiLogic thinks so
• The primes and the upstarts: Counter-drone tech makes for fast friends at ILA Berlin

I’ll be back in your inboxes next week. Thanks for reading.

-Leslie Hitchcock, co-founder and Publisher, Resilience Media

DEALS 💰

Alta Ares reaches a new high with €50M in funding

• Paris startup Alta Ares last week announced it had raised €50 million in funding to build out its own counter-drone stack: a vertically integrated system that includes kinetic components.
• The startup last raised a seed of €2 million around a year ago; and while it is not disclosing its valuation, there are several signals that might explain why this latest round was boosted by 2400%.
• There is big interest in counter-drone technology most immediately because of geopolitical events. In Ukraine, both the country’s army and its adversary, Russia, have leaned heavily into lower-cost drones both for attacking and reconnaissance, underscoring what shape the next generation of warfare will take. Iran has also put up a very strong fight against the US and allies using its low-cost Shahed drones.
• As we have written many times – most recently here – a lot of so-called “exquisite” weaponry has been used to defend against Shaheds, highlighting the need for more agile, newer-generation approaches, such as those being made by startups.

Comand AI raises €32M for its C2 software, adds Saab as a strategic backer

• Comand AI, a French company developing AI-based command-and-control software, has closed a Series A of €32 million.
• The deal was announced and signed earlier today in Paris at the Eurosatory defence conference.
• London firm Blossom Capital is leading the round, with Sweden’s Saab coming in as a strategic investor and previous backer Expeditions also participating.
• Expeditions this week got a boost in its coffers from a new LP, BAE Systems, so technically you could argue there are several strategics involved here.
• The company is not disclosing its valuation. It previously had raised around $12 million, per PitchBook figures.

Lithuania’s PDKinematics raises €2M to scale precision guidance systems across NATO

• Lithuanian startup PDKinematics has raised a €2 million seed round to help the company scale manufacturing as it targets NATO countries with its precision guidance systems for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs).
• Already in use as a pilot on the front lines in Ukraine, PDKinematics has a strategic partnership with US-Ukrainian firm Bavovna.ai, its system is now integrated in Bavovna’s bomber-class UAV platforms.
• The seed round was co-led by Coinvest Capital, Lithuania’s sovereign investment fund, and Iron Wolf Capital and includes angel funding.

DISPATCHES FROM UKRAINE 🇺🇦

Ukrainian MOD launches TrophyLab for partners to study captured Russian tech

Luke Smith, Reporter

While Ukraine is expanding the reach of its home-produced UAVs, it is also learning from the enemy.

The Ministry of Defence has launched TrophyLab, a secure platform that it said will allow allied governments, research institutions, and defense manufacturers to study captured Russian military equipment recovered from the battlefield.

“Every missile, drone, and vehicle seized on the battlefield is now a source of knowledge for the free world,” the ministry said in its announcement. “Shared space for enemy weapons research,” is how it describes TrophyLab on its site.

This is not the first instance of Ukraine realising the opportunities of studying enemy equipment.

Ukraine forces (and their adversaries) already spend a lot of time reverse-engineering fallen drones and other systems in order to better understand how they work and to one-better the enemy. The country’s “Lightning” kamikaze drone, for example, was created from reverse-engineering Russia’s Molniya, and it has reportedly worked on reverse-engineering Russia’s mesh network used for electronic warfare and communications.

Capturing downed equipment was also already gamified to an extent: each piece is prized for helping to better understand how the adversary works (and to source components), giving rise to the term “trophy.”

Through crowdsourcing, TrophyLab is supercharging that kind of opportunity. Approved users will be able to access technical data, reports, vulnerability assessments, and other information on captured Russian systems. Partners will also be able to request access to physical samples for testing, giving engineers the opportunity to validate countermeasures against real enemy equipment.

“Companies, research institutions, and governments of the free world will be able to conduct in-depth studies of Russian missiles and other types of weaponry,” Ukraine minister of defence Mykhailo Fedorov said in a LinkedIn post announcing the platform. “This will help accelerate the development of effective countermeasures and strengthen joint efforts in support of Ukraine’s victory. We are convinced that knowledge about an adversary’s technologies should not remain restricted. It must be used by those building defense systems.”

Several modes of sample analysis will be available, ranging from non-destructive inspection to testing that involves full disassembly or destruction of the system. Partners will also be able to request physical access to captured equipment.

It is not clear if Ukraine will be charging for the service, or if the benefits of having better anti-Russian equipment is sufficient payment in-kind.

Continue reading.

PARTNERSHIPS 🤝

Saronic, Castelion plan autonomous hypersonic strike platform for maritime operations

• Two surface vessel drone makers, Saronic and Castelion, have announced plans to build a hypersonic vehicle for maritime maneuvers.
• The product, a merging of Castelion’s Blackbeard with Saronic’s Medium Unmanned Surface Vessel (MUSV) Marauder, aims to create a low-cost, high-speed vessel that can move quickly in urgent naval warfare situations.
• Blackbeard is Castelion’s first missile system, designed for large-scale production and rapid deployment.
• The weapon uses vertically integrated propulsion and guidance technologies developed in-house, allowing the company to reduce both manufacturing complexity and cost.
• The company recently raised $49.9 million from the U.S. Navy to bring the product into production.

Alpine Eagle and Origin Robotics integrate to strengthen counter-drone defence

• German counter-drone defence technology company Alpine Eagle and Latvian autonomous systems startup Origin Robotics have signed an integration memorandum of understanding (MOU).
• Origin Robotics’ Blaze interceptor will soon work within Alpine Eagle’s Sentinel counter-UAS system.
• The deal was announced Tuesday at Eurosatory, the defence exposition taking place in Paris this week, where Origin had big customer news earlier in the day. It has signed a procurement deal with France, which will be buying Blaze for its armed forces after a competitive process in search of an interceptor drone system.
• The deal is being done by way of a partnership with French integrator DSV, which will be manufacturing Blaze in France itself and delivering the first devices “within weeks.”
• No financial terms have been disclosed.