Ukraine hosts global defense tech summit to attract investment

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00:00Hello and welcome to Weapons and Warfare, where our goal is to give you the information

00:04you need to have an informed conversation about the military and national defense with

00:09your friends, co-workers, significant others — really anybody.

00:12For Straight Arrow News, I'm your host, Ryan Robertson, and as you can tell, we're not

00:16in the studio.

00:17We're out on the road — actually, on the other side of the Atlantic in Lviv, Ukraine.

00:22We're here to cover Brave One's Defense Tech Valley 2025 summit and exposition.

00:27For those who don't know, Brave One is an initiative by the Ukrainian government created

00:32to speed up the growth and use of cutting-edge defensive technologies.

00:36Think of it as a hub that brings together innovators, the military, and investors.

00:41And that's why it's the subject of this week's Debrief.

00:44All right, folks, I'm joined now by Artem Oroz, the head of Investor Relations for Brave One.

00:51Artem, thank you so much for joining us today.

00:52Yes, thank you for coming.

00:54So talk to me about this show.

00:55It's designed to get European-American investment into Ukrainian defense products.

01:00Exactly.

01:01So last year, we had our first edition.

01:03We had people from around 30 countries, more than 1,500 people, and we saw a huge success

01:08of it.

01:09And the idea is exactly — we want to have more investors from Europe, from the United States,

01:13from other parts of the world to invest in Ukrainian technologies to build together

01:17with Ukraine those technologies that are able to protect Ukraine and also the Allies.

01:20This year, we are doing the second edition, and it's actually, according to our knowledge,

01:24should be the biggest investment summit focused on defense tech in the world.

01:27We do have representatives of more than 50 countries.

01:29We do have thousands of people coming from the river side, from the company side, from

01:34startups to scale-ups.

01:35So a huge range of different opportunities.

01:37Let's talk about that huge range of defensive contractors.

01:39I see a lot of UAVs, a lot of UGVs, there's some drone interceptors.

01:45Is there anything in particular that you're wanting more investment into, any kind of technology

01:49that BraveOne really wants to see some investment?

01:52So first, we don't focus on legacy solutions.

01:55We believe that our core value and strength is in technology.

01:58So we want to focus on new generation defense, let's say.

02:02We work a lot with unmanned systems on all domains, from air, ground, water, and underwater.

02:07We also focus a lot on artificial intelligence, because our idea is that we want to move people

02:12away from the front line.

02:13We want to save their lives, and in order to make that, you need to make equipment smarter.

02:17And artificial intelligence is coming there.

02:19Also electronic warfare systems and signal intelligence, that is actually another point that's critical,

02:24like fundamental, plus the communication systems to connect all the different platforms

02:29that operate now on the front line.

02:31Earlier today, there was a press conference, there were several investment agreements that

02:37were announced.

02:38Can you kind of walk through some of those that have come out during the show?

02:40Yeah, absolutely.

02:41So we are trying to build this bridge as BraveOne to connect these private investors with Ukrainian

02:45defense ecosystem, because it's still quite close, and a lot of investors, especially internationally,

02:49they don't understand how they get in.

02:51So what we do, we sign today agreements for more than $100 million of the investment into

02:56Ukrainian companies, in startups, in scale-ups, all the different kinds, from funds from

03:01Europe, also from the U.S., and also today, there was the biggest investment round on

03:06Ukrainian defense tech announced.

03:08Actually, a company working on the swarming technology for drones, letting one operator

03:14control multiple drones, and once they raised the series, say, $16 million round from U.S.

03:19investors.

03:20What does success look like for this conference?

03:22Right?

03:23$100 million, right?

03:24That's the biggest investment in defense tech that you mentioned.

03:28But I imagine that's not going to be where you want to stop, right?

03:31I mean, Russia has more than $100 million worth of weapons.

03:34So where do you gauge success?

03:36Yes.

03:37So we definitely don't manage success in terms of investment amounts, because the impact

03:41that we want to create is on the battlefield.

03:43Those investments are extra resources that companies should have, in addition to grants

03:46that we give as BrayOne, in addition to contracts.

03:49But we need to do as much as we can to get resources from all the places, to invest them

03:54into the technologies, keep the technologies cutting edge, keep them always one step ahead

03:59of Russians.

04:00And then, at some point, we believe this technology will have global potential, and those companies

04:04can become unicorns together with our partners.

04:07I want to pick up on that point, the global potential of so much of this tech, because,

04:11you know, American defense contractors, there was folks in the Department of War who just

04:15said, Ukraine is way ahead of us on drone technology.

04:19Talk about the role that Ukraine is playing to be the springboard of all kinds of defense

04:25technology for the future.

04:26Actually, that's a good point, because I just had a conversation with one U.S.

04:29startup who will be pitching tomorrow at our event.

04:32They are doing visual navigation for drones, so essentially letting drones operate in GNSS-denied

04:37environment.

04:38And they were looking for the platform where they would put this, like, module to let drones

04:42fly.

04:43In the U.S., they couldn't find a platform that is fitting them particular needs.

04:46Here they found it in two hours.

04:47That is like about the variety, about the ecosystem, about getting it more mature.

04:51What else do we need to know about BrayOne before I let you go?

04:54So BrayOne, we actually, today, united more than 2,000 companies, just to understand the

04:58scale of this ecosystem.

05:00We have been the biggest governmental investor in the companies, providing the grants and

05:04giving us the first boost, and also decreasing the risk for investors that are coming today,

05:09because we, as a government, have already invested in those companies.

05:12We help them move away from the prototype or idea to something that is already working on

05:16the front line.

05:17So we invite investors from all the parts of the globe to come to see the technologies,

05:22to know that they have been working, indeed, not on, like, decks or not on the pictures,

05:26but really on the front line, invest in them, and become part of this, like, success story,

05:30both, like, from moral perspective, because we all want to protect democracies, but also

05:34commercially.

05:35These companies will become big, and it will become important globally.

05:38Absolutely.

05:39Thank you so much for joining us today.

05:41Appreciate it.

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