Welcome back to the #52 edition of The New Defense Post!

In this edition, we'll cover:

The Acutronic Group serves as the hidden backbone to much of the aerospace & defense industry, delivering the picks and shovels needed for next-generation systems.

We are the only manufacturer of micro-turbines, actuators, power systems, rate tables, and vibration test systems with a global footprint across the US and Europe.

Ukrainian startup Buntar Aerospace has raised $16 million, bringing its total funding to $30 million. Freedom Fund and an unnamed international private equity fund led the round. The money will go into production, new engineers and managers, and Copilot, Buntar's mission software. (Buntar Aerospace)

Buntar was founded in August 2023 by Bohdan Sas and Ivan Kaunov, now CEO, who served as an officer after the full-scale invasion. Its Buntar-3 is a reusable, vertically launching reconnaissance aircraft built to stream live video over long distances in areas with heavy electronic warfare. Copilot automates mission planning and supports remote piloting. Buntar sits at the expensive end of the drone market but, by Sas's account, below its direct competitors: in 2025, he quoted $250,000 to $400,000 for three aircraft and a ground station and said rival systems cost up to $750,000. (Sas interview, Buntar products, Remote Control)

For a Ukrainian defense startup, $16 million is still a large round. When Swarmer raised $15 million in September 2025, it was reported as the country's largest defense-tech investment at the time. Buntar itself had raised just under $4 million by March 2025 and added $10.4 million in an Axon-led round this March. (Swarmer, Buntar's March round)

🗣 Bohdan Sas, Buntar Aerospace Co-Founder: "We focus on missions where human skill is critical: intelligence, counter-drone operations, and high-precision strike assistance." (Buntar Aerospace)

📰 Our Take: The new funding shows that Buntar no longer sees the Ukrainian military as its only market. The first new market is foreign militaries. Buntar has had interest from abroad since at least 2025, when Sas said buyers in Europe, the UK, and the Middle East were waiting for deliveries, and some had asked for a version without Chinese components. Since July, Ukraine has allowed manufacturers to export to the 27 countries in its Drone Deal framework once their state orders are fulfilled.

The second is the dual-use market, where Axon offers a potential entry point: The US company, best known for Tasers and police body cameras, led Buntar's March round, and the two are working on a partnership covering sales and technology integration. Axon already runs drone programs for police departments through Axon Air and owns the counter-drone company Dedrone. So far, neither company has announced joint products or customers. (The Defense Post, Sas interview, Buntar's Axon partnership, Axon Air, Dedrone)

A week after we covered its new STING S interceptor, Wild Hornets announced on October 5 that Ukraine's Ministry of Defense has granted private air defense status to Night Hornets, the company's own anti-Shahed unit. Its crews will now fly combat missions under the command of the Ukrainian Air Force. (Wild Hornets)

Ukraine has allowed companies to set up their own air defense groups since November 2025. The companies pay for equipment and trained crews, while the Air Force assigns missions and coordinates engagements. By mid-July, 51 companies had been authorized, and groups from four of them were flying combat missions. (MoD framework, MoD July figures)

Night Hornets is made up of Wild Hornets instructors and test pilots. The company says the unit has shot down more than 50 Shaheds, most of them with Hornet Vision Ctrl, its remote interceptor control system. Wild Hornets now plans to build a network of control centers, remote launch sites, and field positions around it. (Wild Hornets)

🗣 Wild Hornets: "We will not sell 'facility protection' services. The operations of our private air defense unit will be funded by profits from drone sales." (Wild Hornets)

📰 Our Take: Air defense as a service is a new and growing market. So it is interesting to observe that, as the quote above suggests, Wild Hornets is explicitly staying out of it. In Ukraine, Carmine Sky charges €330,000 per site, which covers a gun and a year of maintenance. General Cherry, which received the same license as Wild Hornets already in July, has three contracts with large logistics and energy companies and trains their staff to fly its interceptors. The concept has even made it into Y Combinator: IMPACT, a San Francisco startup from this summer's batch, offers subscription-based protection for data centers and power grids, with interceptor drones stationed on-site. (Le Monde via ZN.ua, General Cherry, IMPACT)

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European defense startups have raised $7.4 billion so far in 2026, according to Dealroom and Resilience Media's new State of Defence Tech 2026 report. Dealroom projects $10.5 billion for the full year, compared with $2.6 billion in 2025. Defense now accounts for 11.1% of European venture funding. (Dealroom, Resilience Media)

Helsing's $1.8 billion round and Quantum Systems' $1.2 billion round alone account for roughly 41% of the European total. Both companies are based in Munich. The concentration is also visible in products: drones attracted $4.7 billion across 40 rounds, with another $1.2 billion going into anti-drone technology. (Resilience Media)

For smaller teams, the growth of these well-funded scale-ups creates both potential customers and competitors. A company expanding production needs components, software, and suppliers it can rely on. Selling into that expansion can give a specialist a route to revenue while it builds relationships with its own military buyers.

Quantum Systems has acquired at least nine businesses or controlling stakes since 2024. Two of them, the AI software company Spleenlab and the motor maker Hacker Motor, were suppliers first: Spleenlab's software was already running on Quantum's drones, and Hacker's motors had long been built into them. This week, Anduril bought Popoto, whose modems were already integrated into its systems, and Airbus completed its purchase of Quarkslab, a cybersecurity company that had been a supplier and partner. (Spleenlab, Hacker Motor, Tectonic, Airbus)

Small teams still have a chance, but they need to solve a problem the buyer cannot easily solve on their own. Scale-ups with this much money can build most parts and software in-house, and Quantum described the Hacker Motor deal as part of a strategy to do exactly that. They buy a supplier once its technology has become essential to their products. A nice-to-have feature is not enough.

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