- 2 months ago
What happens when your product gets tested in a live war zone? FirePoint CEO Iryna Terekh and Alta Ares CEO Hadrien Canter are building defense technology at a pace that peacetime procurement cycles never imagined. Missile systems, AI-guided drone interceptors, and battlefield-proven software developed under real operational pressure, often within kilometers of the front line. In conversation with Kristen Davis, they'll share what it actually takes to build fast, iterate under fire, and translate the hard lessons of Ukraine into the future of European security.
Category
🤖
TechTranscript
01:58In fact, that is that in attritional warfare, quantity is quality.
02:04Alta Aras won the 2025 NATO Innovation Challenge, and you now deploy your drone interception
02:09systems against Shahid Tretz on the front lines in Ukraine, but also across the Middle
02:14East in multiple NATO nations.
02:17And you are the first French startup with an active operational footprint in modern conflict.
02:24Welcome to you both, to Vivotech.
02:26Irina, now I want to come back to the fact that you went from building, in fact, concrete
02:30furniture to building the production line behind the Flamingo cruise missile.
02:34Can you walk us through how that started?
02:38The moment you transitioned, what actually happened in week one?
02:41How did you start?
02:43I think we have to start with the thing that the war happened, the big war happened, and
02:47we were looking for a way how we can contribute into a fight.
02:52So, the first week was very chaotic.
02:55I felt extremely stupid in a completely new sphere.
02:59I understood that despite of the engineering background, I need to learn everything from
03:03scratch.
03:04So, I spent 12 hours in our garage back then, talking to people, trying to understand how
03:12specific things work, why we shall go this direction or other direction.
03:17And then I came back home, and I was reading whatever I could put my hands on, trying to
03:22understand the principle behind this specific system.
03:25Back there, we were building our FP1 drone, and we had a big ambition to produce 20 of them
03:31per month.
03:32It's a big drone, it's like Shehet.
03:34And as of now, we are producing 260 of them per day.
03:39Okay.
03:40And...
03:41Yes, you can...
03:43And in what time span was this from that, so 2020?
03:48Three years, three years.
03:49That was the scale that you build at.
03:51Yes, and like this morning, I was having my morning coffee, looking for burning Moscow,
04:01oil refinery, and feeling the impact that had happened just in three years.
04:07I'm really proud of our team's work on that.
04:10Indeed, indeed, at scale and speed there.
04:13Hadrian, quantity is quality.
04:16That's a striking design philosophy for an air defense company.
04:19Can you tell us about a specific Shahid engagement or a threat response where that conviction that you have there
04:25got tested and proved?
04:28Yeah.
04:28First of all, thank you very much for having us.
04:30I think it's a very defense-oriented panel here at VivaTech.
04:35And I'm very proud to share this panel with you, Irina.
04:39Well, the modern air defense scenario is like, especially in NATO countries, was established under the idea that we had
04:51like the air superiority.
04:52And obviously, Russians and now Iranians and two more maybe like Chinese understood that, so they built like this kind
05:03of idea that if they send like large waves of attack drones, like the traditional air defense system wouldn't be
05:10able to deal with all of them.
05:11And I can see where you got some inspiration, Irina, by the way.
05:16But anyway, I think that's quite smart.
05:18We saw that happening in Ukraine, and actually nothing changed in our European way of procuring those kind of systems.
05:26So with our company, two years and a half ago, we started to spend quite some time in Ukraine because
05:32it's where, as you mentioned, I guess all the future of European defense and actually the future of modern warfare
05:38is being created at the moment, you know.
05:42So what is striking as well is that Ukraine has managed to replace things that we thought being not replaceable,
05:49like Patriot missiles, stuff like that.
05:50And right now, I think that more and more Ukrainian companies are showing to the world that it's possible to
05:57not being a defense company two years ago and now becoming one of the leading defense company in the world.
06:03So, of course, we are very inspired by the dynamism that there is in Ukraine because I guess that there
06:10is this sense of urgency.
06:13And I think this matter of urgency, you can feel it even more whenever you are in Kharkiv or in
06:18Kiev and you see these waves of Shahid drones and they are working during the day, the night.
06:24It can be raining, can be like a cold temperature, warm temperature, and it's quite striking.
06:30So, I think what we also need to emphasize on is the place of the human in the loop because
06:37a lot of people are talking about autonomous systems, autonomous systems, but actually behind each operation, there is men and
06:43women on the ground spending days and maybe sometimes like nights in some random potato fields in the middle of
06:50Ukraine trying to either launch or intercept, you know.
06:54And I spent some of those nights and some of those days and I think that us here in Paris,
06:59we are very lucky because we are at peace.
07:01And I think that France, especially now that there is VivaTech and also Erosatory, has this unique place, unique role
07:08to play right now in European defense alongside Ukraine, obviously.
07:12Definitely. Thank you for that.
07:14You are both running companies at and operating at wartime speed out there.
07:21Irina, what's the fastest that you've gone?
07:25From this is something we need to being able to have something operational and in the field.
07:30Can you tell us about that and experience?
07:34I have three cases to tell about.
07:37One of my favorite, I think, in the moment that we created our first fully homemade or almost fully homemade
07:44ballistic missile of a range up to 300 kilometers, which is 90% localized within the country.
07:52And this all because we were keen to create a technological sovereignty instead of relying on some political promises that
08:02we had.
08:02The development took less than two years from the company who never did ballistic before.
08:10And the other case that I like, when we needed to create a mid-range drone as a request from
08:17Ukrainian army because they needed to enlarge the kill zone, they needed to work with the logistics of the enemy.
08:23The design, the initial design of FP1 drone, it's a deep strike drone, helped us to create FP2, which is
08:29a shorter range but heavier payload within three weeks.
08:33Because when we designed FP1, we expected that there would be some changes that we would like to do one
08:39day.
08:40And we put this into design from day one.
08:43And the third case probably is the development of Flamingo, which took nine months.
08:49And that's a great example that I like to tell.
08:51We are working with one of the French companies and the product of theirs is very good.
08:56But we were waiting one and a half years to receive a license to at least speak to this company
09:01and test this product.
09:02So in a lifetime matter, while we received this license from the French company, we could have created two flamingos.
09:11And this is why some bureaucratical and doctrinal changes are very much needed in order to push the industry.
09:19So we have the speed of the creation, which can be three weeks to nine months, which is still incredibly
09:24fast.
09:25And then the speed of actually getting out there, operating on two different timelines.
09:28Hadrian, the timelines here that Irian has just shared us, weeks, months, does this sound crazy or quite familiar to
09:38you at Altaaris?
09:39Well, it sounds quite similar, but I haven't created a cruise missile, nor a ballistic one.
09:46So, of course, my team of engineers are, we have a big hub of Ukrainian engineers in Ukraine,
09:53and they're kind of pushing very hard.
09:55Our French engineers are having a more peaceful life and don't have the same feeling of urgency.
10:01And I think I've been also pushing this idea of export license that usually takes around eight months.
10:07And with some push, and thanks to the French government, we managed to export some of our stuff in the
10:11Middle East in only two months.
10:13And I think that's one of the cases as well when we started to deploy our stuff in the Middle
10:17East.
10:17It was not working at all.
10:20Different weather condition, different batteries there.
10:25So we had to iterate very fast because we realized that actually whenever we were doing some takeoff of our
10:30interceptor in the Middle East,
10:31the sand were getting into the propellers and it was disrupting the operation.
10:36And the extreme heat, actually, and the color of the interceptor was black.
10:40So it was like some of the components were melting in it.
10:43So, like my team on the ground, like in only like 10 days, managed to change all the build of
10:48materials,
10:48change the structure of the drone to make the cooling process more effective.
10:52And I think that's similar to what we call a Ukrainian speed.
10:57And actually, I had to call my Ukrainian engineers to explain them.
11:01And I think that the client, the military over there was quite impressed about what he managed to do in
11:06only like a matter of less than two weeks
11:07to adapt something that was working in Ukraine to something that was not working immediately.
11:12And 10 days after it was working, you know.
11:15So, and you can see the problems in your team whenever the things take off and like intercept the target.
11:21And I think that's the reason why we do that.
11:24I think because we build, we achieve.
11:26It's challenging, short nights, long days, as I often say.
11:30But at least we know why we do that.
11:33And it's for the idea of tech for good, actually.
11:36So, yeah.
11:37So we have speed both in the creation and innovation, but then also in the adaption to the specific context
11:43out there.
11:43When you're moving at speed and iterating under fire, something somewhere along the line is not going to go as
11:49planned.
11:50Okay.
11:51Reliability, safety, cost, politics.
11:55What's one of the trade-offs that you've each had to make in order to keep operating at this speed?
12:01And what are some of the most valuable lessons you've learned as a result?
12:05Irina.
12:07First of all, I would like to say a few unpopular things probably at the tech conference.
12:12So, first of all, you have to abandon such concepts like work-life balance and any other things that you
12:20can see on Instagram, how you are doing this remotely from some islands.
12:25This is never happening.
12:27The second thing, if everything all the time goes wrong and you have to learn how to navigate these circumstances,
12:36everything can go wrong from inside the company as well that you get bombed from the sky and many other
12:43hybrid threats that you're facing.
12:45You have to accept that this is a new reality, this will not change, and you just get adapted to
12:51this.
12:52And the third thing, we are living in an age where everybody is trading the AI here, AI there.
12:59I still am very old-fashioned in this way.
13:03So, the main, most important things in the company are still based on a very old-school human contact.
13:09Despite of the fact that I always joke that we are the, I mean, the tech founders of defense company,
13:18we are the only people, when we steal jobs from Ukrainian soldiers with AI, they're only happy about this.
13:26Because every other people are not happy when AI is still in their job.
13:29But still, in fact, there is a human behind every important decision, there is a human behind every automation, and
13:36we do not have to be in illusions that we can immediately jump in a new timeline without learning how
13:44to build an old-school system architecture, old-school business processes, old-school risk approach.
13:52So, the trade-off there being effectively the sacrifice that you have to make here, but keeping the human at
13:58the center of this is not something that we're willing to trade.
14:00Hadrian, how about yourself?
14:02One of the trade-offs may be on a valuable lesson that you've learned through iterating at speed.
14:10I believe it is that we need to build products that are good enough.
14:14Usually, in the defense industry, you need to have, like, perfect product, which requires, like, years, years of development.
14:23And now, I guess it's better to have something ready at 80% in matters of weeks, rather than something
14:29being ready at 99% ready in years, you know?
14:33So, it's, like, speed, I think, is the key about, like, you have to make this trade-off between speed
14:39and reliability.
14:40Of course, the safety of the personal is always key.
14:42It's something that we will never make trade-offs on.
14:44But I always tell my engineers, guys, the truth is in the field.
14:48You can spend how many, like, simulations as you want to run, like, algorithms, but nothing will replace.
14:54That you go on the battlefield, test it, and actually, like, a lot of countries are now adopting this way
15:01of working that is coming from Ukraine.
15:02You go to the Baltic states.
15:04They're all, like, super keen to come, to have your system flying there.
15:07And it's something that we did, like, recently in Estonia.
15:10We had, like, this new prototype called the Blackbird, specifically designed against, like, cruise missiles, like, high-speed interceptor.
15:18And it was, like, freezing cold, like, minus 25 degrees, so, like, arctic condition.
15:24And my engineer told me, yeah, we put this system in it, and I'm sure it will fly because it's
15:29the specs, you know?
15:30And we run a simulation.
15:31Yeah, you bet.
15:32Like, we make the takeoff, all the things were freezing in it of cold, and, like, the system was not
15:38performing as well, you know?
15:39And it's a thing that you can't see and you can't anticipate if you're not on the field.
15:45So, once again, I guess, truth is in the field.
15:47I think this idea of world-life balance is kind of tricky as well.
15:54I think you have to, when you join a defense company, you have to understand that you will spend a
15:57lot of time, like, super involved in the mission and in what you develop.
16:01But at the end, like, you're part of something that is above you, and that's something that's really critical to
16:07hire people that believe in the mission that you're doing.
16:11And that's why we are really lucky in France to have one of the best engineers in the world, I
16:15guess, besides Ukraine, of course.
16:18But, yeah, that's the trade-off.
16:20So, definitely, testing in the field is key here.
16:24And you've just been talking about the lessons that we can learn from Ukraine, talking about Estonia.
16:31But you're also saying that we can reshape Europeans' defense procurement and the industry with some of the lessons that
16:37we can learn from Ukraine here.
16:39What is the one thing that a NATO government or corporates here in the room here today can rapidly start
16:46doing to reshape the procurement systems in the industries?
16:51So, there are a few of things, but I will highlight the most important, in my opinion.
16:56Ukrainian procurement systems started to share responsibility with the manufacturer.
17:01And what does it mean that if I need to update the system due to my observation that the old
17:08previous system is not that effective anymore,
17:10I can do this within the existing contract, and this will take me one letter and one message.
17:18And the most important part, we cannot change the price, but this is not in the center of the moment
17:23of the attention.
17:24And we do not have to recertify to do tremendous weeks and years of new commissions and testing and everything.
17:33So, we are sharing the responsibility for our product to work.
17:37And whatever it takes is the responsibility of the manufacturer.
17:41And I think this is a great thing.
17:43This may sound a little bit too risky for a procurement system, but this gives its result on the front
17:48line.
17:48Because we are not waiting for bureaucracy to keep up with the technological race that is happening on a daily
17:54basis on the front line.
17:55It's not even a weekly thing.
17:57So, there's the risk of taking that shared risk, but there's also the risk of not taking it in here.
18:04Hadrian, how about yourself?
18:05One thing that we can learn from Ukraine to help us in our procurement and our industry here?
18:13I think having agile contractual framework that can indeed foreseen the potential improvement and iteration of the product is key.
18:23Beside that, I think that the French government also started to buy things on the shelf.
18:27Instead of having the procurement agency saying what they need, basically each company are developing their product,
18:34are offering it to the military by using them on real condition, and then the procurement agency is buying it.
18:40And then, like, if they want to modify it, of course, they can put these kind of specs.
18:45But, yeah, I guess that the procurement agency in the world are really learning a lot from Ukraine, I guess.
18:51And there was, like, one big procurement agency in Ukraine, ours, DPA, and just got more or less dissolved.
18:57And, like, they gave, like, more power to the brigades to buy on their own.
19:01And, of course, it's a country at war, so we can't replicate the same thing.
19:04We need to have this, like, uniformization.
19:06But also, all this safe initiative between the EU, like, EU members and Ukraine and Canada,
19:13also allows multiple European countries to buy together things.
19:17And that's how we create a very solid and strong European defense ecosystem.
19:22Effectively.
19:23Let's project ourselves a couple of years into the future and say that these two wishes that you have just
19:28announced, said here,
19:30come about as announcements.
19:31And we're working in a very different context, both in terms of timing, but hopefully also in terms of security
19:36and defense.
19:37What will Firepoint and Alta Ares look like in three years' time?
19:42That's the speed you're moving at.
19:45Ideally, there is no more Russian Empire existing, and we can focus on a high technological space project.
19:52Thank you so much, Irina.
19:58That is definitely something we'd like to be talking about here at VivaTech very soon.
20:03Hadrian, yourself, Alta Ares.
20:07Well, if there is no more Russian Empire, it would be hard for us to still operate in Ukraine,
20:12but we'd be very happy and we'd have, like, more peaceful nights, obviously.
20:14So, yeah, it's also something that we wish to have, like, of course, more peace in the world in this
20:19matter.
20:20But on Alta Ares, we have, like, a roadmap of development to go faster and higher.
20:24What does that mean?
20:25So, it means that most of our systems are using, like, electric propulsion today.
20:29Some of them are using, like, jet turbine system.
20:32The goal is to go, like, faster, so with some other way of solid rocket fuel as well to kind
20:38of boost the speed of our system and higher
20:41because I believe that the next warfare will be in the space.
20:44And the idea we just announced last week, a partnership with Airbus.
20:48Our goal is to work on technologies that could also give our nation the upper hand high in the space,
20:58in the ground, at the sea, and in the air, obviously.
21:02Higher and faster.
21:04Wonderful things to look forward to.
21:05Thank you so much for being with us, Irina.
21:07Thank you so much, Hadrian.
21:08It's been a pleasure.
21:09Thank you very much.
Comments