The war in Ukraine has profoundly changed the way in which modern weapons are thought and produced, bringing out an unprecedented ecosystem of start-ups specializing in defense. With the omnipresence of drones, this conflict has accelerated the development of agile, economic, economic and immediate feedback weapons, whether drones, anti -tank and anti -aircraft missiles, 155 mm belts or land mines.
The needs are such that kyiv plans to acquire 4.5 million FPV drones (First Person View) in 2025, three times more than in 2024. Last year, 96 % of these machines had been bought from Ukrainian manufacturers. Most are small cheap agricultural drones equipped with explosives and piloted by field operators like the vampire, nicknamed “Baba Yaga”, a Slavic folklore witch.
These weapons are constantly improved, with jammers and thermal cameras. Droneua federates several manufacturers capable of producing up to 2,500 heavy drones per month and 4,000 small drones per day. The start-up Swarmer, on the other hand, develops an artificial intelligence called Styx to automatically control drones swarms. It recently attracted $ 2.7 million in American investments.
The Ukrainian army and local defense start-ups maintain a particularly advanced interconnection. Ukraine even has mobile lines for the production of printed circuits directly on the battlefield. This capacity allows units to produce adapted electronic cards every day to avoid the frequencies of enemy electronic jamming. In addition, several Ukrainian regiments have their own budget specifically dedicated to collaboration with local start-ups. This proximity between the front and the culture of the test-error gives start-ups a decisive advantage to refine pragmatic solutions. It makes it possible to judge the relevance of an innovation. This is how the Ukrainians quickly measured the inadequacy of the vibrational probes which identified the artillery parts but only operated on battery and unnecessarily exhibited their soldiers.
A more agile European Europe
This development of defense start-ups exceeds Ukraine. The American Andundil, founded in 2017, perfectly illustrates this technological breakup. Valored about ten billion dollars, this company reversed the traditional logic of tenders by developing, of its own initiative, autonomous drones and border surveillance systems adopted directly by the US military.
In Europe, the German Helsing follows a similar trajectory, reaching a valuation close to 5 billion euros in two years of existence. After a first delivery of 4,000 HF-1 drones, the company announced the production of an additional 6,000 HX-2 drones for kyiv. These devices, with a range of 100 kilometers and improved autonomy, will be used to target the artillery and Russian armored parts. It also equips the French canons Caesar, from Nexter, with an artificial intelligence module. Last summer, the Californian incubator Y combinator invested in Ares, his first defense start-up, in order to develop low-cost cruise missiles.
This agility contrasts with the heaviness of major European military programs such as Eurodrone, whose commissioning is planned in 2032, with a unit cost of 120 million euros. Faced with the drop in orders for thirty years, major industrialists in the sector, such as Rheinmetall, Thales or Bae have tended to concentrate.
But some signals go green. The recent Rearm Europe plan, with 150 billion euros over four years, and the lifting of “debt brake” for German military expenditure exceeding 1 % of the country’s GDP represent a major macroeconomic recovery. Economist Ethan Ilzetzki says that a transient increase of around 1 % of GDP in military spending could improve long -term productivity of 0.25 %. To get there, you have to be careful not to choose technologies too far from the battlefield or traditional actors with slow processes. The speed of innovation is the path of salvation.
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