Welcome back to the fourteenth edition of The New Defense Post!
In this edition, we’ll cover:
Review: The first New Defense Summit brought together 150+ EDTH alumni, founders, investors, and industry experts. There is more to defense than drones—learn what the latest wave of new defense tech startup founders is working on.
Spotlights: NATO–Ukraine: New Joint Innovation Program; German Drones Startups Go to the UK; Anduril Falls Short: Moving Fast and Breaking Things, or Simply Underdelivering?
Fundraising News of the Week: Quantum Systems, StirlingX, PowerUP Energy Technologies, and Thermopylae Aerospace raised new rounds across Europe and the US, highlighting strong investor appetite for drones, interceptors, and advanced power systems.
Bonus Section: We’ll examine how drone decoys are used in Ukraine.
Review: The New Defense Summit 2025
After 20 European Defense Tech Hackathons, a new wave of defense innovators is taking shape across the continent.
Dozens of EDTH alumni kept building after the hackathons, turning their weekend prototypes into actual products and ideas into defense tech startups.
Fourteen of them returned to Berlin two weeks ago to pitch at the New Defense Summit—our annual gathering of founders, industry experts, and investors.
Spotlights
1. NATO–Ukraine: New Joint Innovation Program
Deputy Secretary General Radmila Shekerinska with Minister of Digital Transformation of Ukraine Mykhailo Fedorov. Photo Credit: Brave1
NATO and Ukraine have launched UNITE - Brave NATO, a joint innovation, technology, and engineering program to scale already prototyped and tested defense tech that meets NATO interoperability standards.
The first competition will award €10mn in joint grants to Allied and Ukrainian teams building counter-drone systems, stronger air defense, and secure frontline communications, with NATO’s NCI Agency running the call and Ukraine’s Brave1 cluster leading from Kyiv.
If the pilot round hits its goals, funding could scale to €50mn in 2026, including new work on SIGINT, robust navigation in contested electromagnetic environments, and unmanned ground systems, with winners to be showcased at the 2026 NATO-Ukraine Defense Innovators Forum. (Defender Media)
🗣 Mykhailo Fedorov, First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Digital Transformation of Ukraine: “This cooperation will accelerate the development of cutting-edge defense technologies and strengthen interoperability. Together, we are building a more resilient, adaptive, and technologically advanced defense architecture for the entire Euro-Atlantic community.” (NATO)
📰 Our Take: UNITE - Brave NATO is essentially a structured pathway for Ukrainian and Allied startups and scaleups that already have tech in the field and now need interoperability, credibility, and non-dilutive capital.
The ticket size is modest by NATO standards, but the real prize is access to live battlefield feedback, NATO countries as customers, and a clear route from prototype to multi-country adoption.
Field testing and the ability to iterate quickly are essential if you want to succeed as a defense-tech startup (or any hardware startup). The only place where you can do this at scale is in Ukraine.
2. German Drones Startups Go to the UK
Photo Credit: ARX Robotics
German defense tech startups Helsing, STARK, and ARX Robotics are pouring capital into new UK factories to help close the British Army’s drone gap, building underwater gliders, sea drones, strike drones, and ground robots for a market that is trying to modernise fast.
The UK is attractive; it has one of Europe’s largest defense budgets, a more permissive export regime than many EU states, and a Strategic Defense Review that calls for a big jump in lethality through autonomous systems, yet actual drone purchases for British forces still trail far behind the tens of thousands of systems sent to Ukraine.
German firms are opening plants in Plymouth, Swindon, and near London to meet the Ministry of Defense’s preference for local production, even as British founders warn that foreign suppliers risk crowding out homegrown manufacturers.
🗣 David Roberts, UK chief executive, Arx Robotics: “There is a significant drone capability gap in the UK Armed Forces.” (Financial Times)
📰 Our Take: For German startups, the UK offers a powerful combination of low competition, easy exports, and a strong willingness to pay — especially as London talks up higher defense spending and a new drone centre.
For the UK ecosystem, the picture is mixed: German players are positioning themselves as the quickest way to plug urgent capability gaps, while local founders are left with the bitterness of missing out on building national champions.
3. Anduril Falls Short: Moving Fast and Breaking Things, or Simply Underdelivering?
Photo Credit: Anduril
U.S. defense tech giant Anduril is under scrutiny after two of its Altius drones crashed during U.S. Air Force tests over Eglin Air Force Base in Florida, even as the Pentagon signed a contract worth up to $50 million for further Altius testing, training, and support.
The company, now valued at about $30.5bn, has marketed Altius as battle-ready and shipped hundreds of systems to Ukraine and Taiwan, but the recent failures, along with earlier issues in its Ghost drone line, highlight a growing gap between Silicon Valley-style promises and the reality of operating in dense electronic warfare and harsh field conditions.
Western platforms, including Anduril’s, have so far played a limited role in Ukraine, where officials say the vast majority of drones at the front are locally built. Early Ghost models reportedly struggled against Russian jamming and terrain, and even the upgraded Ghost X has suffered visible mishaps in U.S. Army exercises, although users also report solid performance in tough environments.
🗣 Palmer Luckey, Anduril founder: “We are going to move fast, build what works, and get it into the hands of the people who need it.” (Reuters)
📰 Our Take: This is not about winning all the time or hitting home runs with every bet. It’s about trying, innovating, and accepting that there will be serious setbacks along the way. That’s okay, because the alternative is that “perfect” products arrive too late, and people on your side pay the price. They seem to understand that at Anduril. (Anduril)
What isn’t great is that they didn’t iterate right away or stay in Ukraine. Their product didn’t work, and they simply left. That’s not the way to go. Quantum Systems kept iterating, and now their systems are excellent.
Anduril and other American neo-primes are simply not putting enough into the game, still too focused on large contracts and missing opportunities for rapid iteration on things that actually work.
Other News
Fundraising News
Amount | Name | Round | Category |
|---|---|---|---|
€180mn | Drones (ISR and Interceptors) | ||
$11mn | Drones (ISR) | ||
€10mn | Hydrogen Power Cells | ||
$1.6mn | Interceptor Drones |
Bonus Section — Decoys in Ukraine
Photo: Russian Media
Drone warfare has turned into a competition where cost, volume, and pressure on air-defense systems matter as much as accuracy.
Out of this has grown a new product category: industrial decoy drones designed to distort the air picture. Russia’s “Gerbera” is the most visible example. A June 2025 assessment estimated its output at roughly 2,500 units per month (ISW).
The basic airframe is extremely simple: plywood, foam, and a Luneberg lens. This lens is the key feature. It reflects radar in a way that makes the drone appear larger and more threatening, close enough to the radar signature of a real Shahed-136 to force operators to treat it as a credible target. Gerberas are launched in swarms together with real Shahed drones. They do not carry the Shahed’s 50 kg warhead. Their job is to fill the radar screen, trigger unnecessary engagements, and create enough confusion for the real drones to slip through.
The concept has already evolved. Some Gerberas now conduct basic reconnaissance runs or probe air-defense reactions before the main wave arrives (ISIS). Ukraine responds with adjustments of its own: refined filtering, changes to engagement rules, and a growing set of decoy drones in its own repertoire. The interaction has settled into a step-by-step cycle. One side raises the number of false tracks. The other adjusts its sensors. One side alters its reflector or routing. The other recalibrates thresholds. This is now a permanent layer of the fight.
For units on the ground, the need is straightforward: systems that identify real drones quickly and limit interceptor waste. For companies, this means building the tools that make that task easier.
The decoy race is redefining air defense. In this shadow war, victory will belong to the side that sees through the deception.
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