The Ukrainian and British company U-Force, which has set up a maritime drone factory in Portugal, will reach the status of a ‘unicorn’ in defence technology*, following a capital injection of $50 million, the company has said in a statement today.
The operation was led by Shield Capital and Lakestar, with the participation of Ballistic Ventures and other European and American investors, writes Expresso, recalling that the company’s technology “has been proven in real combat on various fronts in Ukraine and was tested in September in the world’s largest military drone exercise, REPMUS (Robotic Experimentation and Prototyping using Maritime Unmanned Systems), which takes place annually in Troia (Setúbal).
“Ukraine has not just adapted to modern warfare, it has reinvented it,” Oleg Rogynskyy, co-founder and CEO of U-Force, explains. ‘We have created a company that can take these battle-proven systems – not just slide presentations – and deliver them to allies now facing similar threats.”
The company holds majority stakes in nine Ukrainian developers of critical technologies, including the formidable Magura kamikaze drones – unmanned surface vehicles that have already sunk more than a dozen Russian warships – with an MV7 version being built in Portugal.
Other products from U-Force include the Nemesis and R18, bomber drones – widely used in the defence of Ukrainian territory – and the Lyut 2 (Fury), a robotic ground combat platform.
The company also develops command and control systems capable of managing drone swarm operations.
According to Rogynskyy, U-Force was created to ‘institutionalise and scale “battle-proven” systems, enabling Western allies to rapidly adopt state-of-the-art aerial, maritime and ground drones.
The company’s leadership team – which includes former Ukraine prime minister OIeksii Honcharuk, and former UK defence secretary Ben Wallace – combines expertise in the technology, government and defence sectors, Expresso continues.
In September, dozens of Ukrainians took part in the REPMUS exercises, with a number of MV7 drones already being tested.
At the time a U-Force representative spoke with Expresso explaining why these ‘kamikaze’ weapons were being produced in Portugal: “Portugal is a leader in the area of autonomous small boats,” he said – not giving the location of the base where construction takes place. “It is where the Navy hopes to establish a NATO centre of excellence for maritime drones”, wrote the paper at the time.
With this latest capital injection of $50 million, U-Force intends to scale up production at industrial facilities across Europe.
“The goal is the rapid operationalisation of autonomous systems that have proven effective against kinetic threats and in electronic warfare environments where GPS is blocked”, Expresso concludes.
*A unicorn is the description of a privately held ‘start up’ valued at over $1 billion.
Source material: Expresso
