Falcons, one of the wave of defence tech startups out of Ukraine that have emerged out of the war against Russia, has picked up some investment as it scales its business. Green Flag Ventures, a firm based out of LA that focuses specifically on early-stage rounds for startups out of Ukraine that build AI, cybersecurity and dual-use tech, is writing the check. This is the first time that a U.S. investor has backed the startup.
The exact amount is not being disclosed, but Svitlana Braslavska, the CMO and COO who co-founded Falcons with CEO Yehor Dudinov, described it in an emailed interview as a “typical” early-stage check for Green Flag. The VC has previously made investments of between $1.5 million and $5 million in five startups, per PitchBook data.
Falcons, founded in 2022 after the start of the war — Dudinov is described as “an active-duty military serviceman with a background in strategic planning and product management” — had previously received three grants from the Ukrainian defence technology cluster Brave1 (in 2023, 2024, and 2025), as well as early backing from unnamed angel investors. The team itself has also directly contributed funds to Falcons “to build, test, and deploy its systems on the battlefield,” Braslavska said.
The funding will be used to continue scaling the business and critically work on helping the company gain NATO certification for its products, the company said.
The war in Ukraine has a very technological front, where both sides are using AI and a new wave of devices like lower-cost drones to detect what their enemy is doing and to attack them, and equally to evade detection by the other side.
Falcons is very much a startup working at the heart of that so-called electronic warfare landscape. It develops vertically-integrated technologies — physical equipment and the software needed to run it — for users to track activity in GPS-denied environments.
Its flagship Eter system detects the direction of enemy equipment — these include hostile drones, communication equipment, relays, and other electronic warfare assets — operating at specific radio frequencies designed to try to evade detection. Falcons is already in active use and the company claims that Eter “has already demonstrated battlefield success, contributing to the confirmed destruction of around a $90 million Russian system.”
The investment here is significant for a couple of reasons beyond giving Falcons the funds needed to grow.
It’s a signal of how Ukrainian startups — built to fill an urgent need, typically using low-cost and readily available components that vastly undercuts the costs of systems from more established vendors and primes — are now looking at how to develop that into a wider business.
And it also underscores how investors are tapping opportunities in that space in response to wider demand.
“Falcons is a shining example of Ukraine’s defense innovation ecosystem,” said Deborah Fairlamb, co-founder of Green Flag Ventures, in a statement. “The company has proven its ability to design, deploy, and refine battlefield technology, shaping the future of electronic warfare defense for Ukraine and its allies.”
The NATO certification speaks to how that could play out. Getting that seal of approval could help Falcons bid for deals with other countries in the alliance over time as export channels open up more fully, as many believe they will. However, for now the focus remains squarely on its home market.
“Ukraine is and will remain our main priority,” Braslavska said. “Our technology is born from the realities of this war, and our first responsibility is to strengthen Ukraine’s defence and contribute to victory.”
Indeed, current events provide the most poignant reason and significance for Falcons raising money now and eyeing up its international opportunities (if such a word could be used in a potentially lethal context).
Just this week, Russian drones made their way into airspace in Poland, a move that many believe should not be taken as a one-off situation, but rather a sign of what could be expected in the future from an aggressive adversary.
“We are unfortunately not surprised by these incidents,” Braslavska said. “The incursion of Russian drones into NATO airspace highlights both the urgency of strengthening allied counter-drone and electronic warfare capabilities and the limitations of current air defense systems.”
Modern systems, predominantly in service with NATO countries, remain unprepared for large-scale “DDoS-style” drone swarms that deplete expensive ammunition far too quickly—even in GPS-enabled environments, she added.
