Welcome back to the nineteenth edition of The New Defense Post!
In this edition, we’ll cover:
The Six-Dimension Operating System for Defense Investing: After detailing how to reach Gate 0 in his first guest article, Pierre-Marie Derouin joined us again to break down what you need as a defense tech startup to scale.
Spotlights: Fire Point Agrees to Sell a 30 Percent Stake to UAE Sovereign Wealth Fund in a $760Mn Deal; Rafael Is Set to Deliver Iron Beam, Its Long-Awaited High-Powered Laser Air-defense System, to the IDF
Bonus Section: We’ll explore how radar technology is evolving and the startups driving that change.
The Six-Dimension Operating System for Defense Investing
Photo Credit: Parrot
Once a company clears Gate 0, the question changes. It is no longer “are you eligible?” but “can you scale?”
The New Defense Hex™ answers that question. It is not a checklist. It is a way of understanding why some companies can operate inside sovereign constraints and why others cannot, no matter how good the technology looks.
The Hex reveals six structural layers. Each is interdependent. A weakness in one creates cascade failures across the others. A company with clean IP but no sovereign-aligned ownership cannot export. A company with a funded contract but no security accreditation cannot deploy.
After detailing how to reach Gate 0 in his first guest article, Pierre-Marie Derouin joined us again to break down what you need as a defense tech startup to scale.
Spotlights
1. Fire Point Agrees to Sell a 30 Percent Stake to UAE Sovereign Wealth Fund in a $760MN Deal
Photo Credit: Fire Point
A Ukrainian defense-tech heavyweight may be on the verge of its largest-ever deal. Fire Point, a producer of long-range strike drones and missiles, is planning to sell a 30% stake to EDGE Group, the defense conglomerate owned by the UAE’s sovereign wealth fund, according to BBC News Ukraine.
The transaction is reportedly valued at ~$760mn, implying a $2.5bn valuation for the company. If approved by Ukraine’s Antimonopoly Committee, it would become by far the largest transaction in the history of Ukrainian defense tech. (Defender Media)
📰 Our Take: A $2.5bn valuation backed by a Gulf sovereign fund signals that battlefield-proven Ukrainian systems are now investable at global, strategic scale, not just grant- or aid-funded. It also shows that capital is increasingly willing to underwrite hardcore strike capabilities, not just ISR or drones at the edge.
It’s also striking to see that on the one hand, the UAE condemned the alleged drone strike on Vladimir Putin's residence (which didn’t happen!). On the other hand, the same week before the new year, EDGE Group considers investing in Ukrainian defense technology.
It shows the UAE is acting opportunistically, separating public diplomacy from private capital allocation. And capital is flowing to whoever proves they can deliver effects at scale — and the UAE is acting early. In today’s market, performance under fire is the ultimate de-risking event.
2. Rafael Is Set to Deliver Iron Beam, Its Long-Awaited High-Powered Laser Air-defense System, to the IDF
Photo Credit: Project A
After more than a decade of development and extensive testing, Iron Beam has reached initial operational capability and will complement Israel’s existing layered air-defense architecture, sitting alongside Iron Dome, David’s Sling, and Arrow.
Iron Beam is designed to intercept smaller threats such as rockets, mortars, and drones, with the key advantage of effectively unlimited “ammunition” as long as power is available and relatively low cost per shot.
Developed by Rafael, Iron Beam is already becoming a family of systems, including mobile and lighter variants showcased at the Paris Air Show, designed to protect ground forces and critical sites.
During the recent conflict with Hezbollah, the IDF used a lower-powered laser variant to down dozens of drones, showing that directed-energy weapons in counter-UAS and swarm defense can be effective. (The Times of Israel)
🗣 Danny Gold, Head of DDR&D: “The Iron Beam laser system is expected to fundamentally change the rules of engagement on the battlefield.” (The Times of Israel)
📰 Our Take: Iron Beam’s deployment is a milestone not just for Israel, but for the global defense-tech landscape. It shows that directed-energy weapons are crossing the threshold from “almost ready” to “field-ready,” something many Western programs have promised but not yet delivered at scale.
One important factor to keep in mind is that the environment in which Israel would deploy these systems is highly favorable to laser technology. Rain and fog are rare, conditions that significantly degrade laser performance. This is very different from most of Europe, especially in winter, which is one of the main reasons why such systems are less of a priority there.
That said, this is still very interesting news. Laser-based systems remain one of the most promising approaches for dramatically reducing the cost per shot when countering drones.
Other News
Bonus Section: How Radar Technology is Evolving
Photo Credit: Advanced Protection Systems
Radar is moving from “a sensor that spots blips” to a perception layer that can detect, track, and classify small targets in clutter, then send that information to effectors fast enough to matter. The big shift is software: better signal processing, micro-Doppler features, and neural networks that turn ambiguous returns into actionable labels like drone, bird, or aircraft.
On the counter-drone front, Europe’s Advanced Protection Systems (APS) in Poland is building its FIELDctrl 3D MIMO radar line as the backbone of its SKYctrl anti-drone system, specifically designed to detect very small flying objects and integrate with air-defense stacks.
In the Netherlands, Robin Radar is pushing drone detection radars that combine 360-degree, 3D coverage with micro-Doppler classification and deep-learning models to reduce false alarms and distinguish drones from look-alikes.
Dutch startup Perciv AI is building what it describes as dedicated AI for radar perception, along with radar-camera fusion software, aiming to make off-the-shelf radars behave like richer perception systems in poor visibility conditions.
Radar is also expanding upward into space safety. France’s Look Up is scaling a network of ground-based surveillance and tracking radars paired with a software platform for monitoring objects in orbit, and it has publicly discussed operational testing of its first space-surveillance radar, framed as a startup-led capability.
In security settings, that same idea is attractive because it can reduce spectrum congestion and make the sensor’s presence known to potential threats.
Still, radar does not magically solve everything. Electronic attacks, dense RF environments, and the messy physics of small targets impose real limits, and automating responses can raise difficult questions when classification outputs begin triggering actions. Keeping a human in the loop, especially when triggered responses are severe, remains necessary. The 1983 incident involving Stanislav Petrov is a reminder of why this matters.
But the trajectory is clear: Startups are building radars and radar AI that compress the loop from detection to decision, and the spillover into civilian uses like airports, wind farms, critical infrastructure, and space traffic monitoring is already underway.
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