On Boxing Day 2025, we received a press release from Roark Aerospace. The UK startup, which makes anti-drone systems, reported it had closed a $210 million Series B investment round at a post-money valuation of $1.6 billion.
It caught our attention. If the UK had produced a defence tech startup able to raise such a big round, that is news. But we were also puzzled: the first UK defence tech startup to claim ‘unicorn’ status was a company we’d never heard of before.
The CEO, Patton Atkinson French, who sent the email, was not on our radar and the only investor it noted in this large Series B was “a US-based investment bank via an SPV.”
Resilience Media contacted French requesting more information. He said that a “vetting manager” would be in touch regarding the interview request, so we sent over some questions to get the ball rolling.
No vetting manager ever reached out, but French sent written responses to the questions as well as a PDF presentation related to the startup’s Series B, with no request for confidentiality, nor requirement to keep any of the information on background.
We started to dig deeper, and the results of the investigation were stranger than fiction. “The claims are extraordinary,” said one person. “If they can do what they say, they are brilliant.”
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