Nataliia Kushnerska: In 2025, It Is Planned to Attract $100 Million In Investments In Ukrainian Defense Tech
21 February, 2025 The Trembita missile and the mobile automatic guidance system for the Chumak 120mm mortar by the Pars design bureau. Photo: Brave1, February 2025 In 2025, Ukraine's Defense Tech plans to attract £100 million in investments to develop innovations in the defense sector.
Nataliia Kushnerska, CEO of Brave1, stated this during the Defense Tech Innovations Forum 2025, which took place in Kyiv. She noted that the interest of international companies and investors in raising funds in Ukrainian Defense Tech was only growing. "Speaking of investments, last year it was £40 million.
This may not be a big amount, but compared to 2023, when it was £8 million, it is a pretty big increase. And this year we plan to reach £100 million. We see how the checks of such companies are growing: investments started at £20, £30, £35 thousand, and now they are several million dollars.
Sometimes it exceeds £10 million, and this is, again, the stability of our Ukrainian defense tech," Nataliia Kushnerska said in a comment to Militarnyi.
Nataliia Kushnerska, Head of Defense Tech Cluster Brave1, at the opening of Defense Tech Innovations Forum 2025. Photo credits: Brave1, February 2025
Defense Tech Innovations Forum 2025 brought together more than 3000 participants from about 40 countries.
The event was attended by 150 foreign investors, including large defense companies interested in investing in Ukrainian developers to accelerate the development of their own technologies. The forum also included an exhibition of military technologies. In particular, DeViRo presented the Bulava unmanned reconnaissance and strike system.
Foreign companies represented at the exhibition included Tekever, Shield.ai, Quantum Systems, ARX Robotics, MyDefense, and Vermeer. Manufacturers demonstrated UAVs of various types, EW and EW systems, missiles, ground robotic systems, repeaters, training systems, air defense, and AI-based programs.
Also during the forum, 29 Ukrainian teams presented their developments to investors at a pitching session. The Defense Tech Innovations Forum 2025 was also attended by the military, who shared their experience of applying technology on the battlefield. "Our main goal is to collect relevant information, inventions, and innovations.
As an R&D unit, our main goal is to study and collect the best, to directly apply it on the front line," Valerii, a junior sergeant and senior technician of the 412th NEMESIS regiment of the Unmanned Systems Forces, told Militarnyi.
Valerii, junior sergeant, senior technician of the 412th NEMESIS Regiment of the SSU. Photo credits: Militarnyi
He emphasized that the developments presented had been mostly improvements to already known technologies. But he did not directly answer the question about which developments are priority and promising.
"Any technology that also works autonomously is already good," he said. The main topics of the forum were the development of technologies in four key domains: air, land, water and space. "The forum showed that Ukraine is a global hub where defense innovations are born.
This encourages the best foreign manufacturers to localize production and transfer technology," Brave1 noted.
Militarnyi became a media partner of Defense Tech Innovations Forum 2025, so follow our publications on the presented developments.