Darkstar is building rapid connection between Ukraine & EU Defence Tech

Ragnar Sass, Estonian tech entrepreneur and angel investor, has kick started his latest way of supporting the Ukrainian War – The Darkstar Coalition.

Building on from the success of Help99 Ukraine, which has delivered over 8m EUR  of aid consisting of 400+ Trucks and 1000 Drones directly to the frontlines – Darkstar is looking being the most active investor for pre-seed & seed in defence tech, and will invest up to 1 million per company

It will directly support the scaling of innovative defense tech that can benefit from the expertise he has brought together.

Founded by tech entrepreneurs , with over 30 involved from Estonia, Germany, France, Czech Republic, Netherlands, UK and more. Everyone involved has experience of building companies, many up to Unicorn size, or previous Military careers.

Partnered with Brave1, Heroes & Allies and representations from Military Intelligence,  Unmanned Systems Forces and more. Darkstar is in a unique position, due to its NGO Help99 Ukraine, as it has built a wide and trusted network with 200 military units; providing direct access and relationships for product feedback and rapid combat testing.

Organising and successfully delivering its first ‘5 day extreme bootcamp’, a few weeks ago in Ukraine, the team are now in the process of also making their investments into start-ups that attended. They believe the best defence tech teams in the world right now, are in Ukraine

The event had 12 teams selected from an international pool (10 Ukraine, 1 Romania and Spain, and Germany). The technology was broad, from land based drones, communication systems, software through to gliding bombs and targeting systems.

The team strongly believes the best way to help Ukraine to win is giving a technological advantage to the Ukrainian side, but this cannot be done by Ukraine alone.

What they love about Ukrainian companies is how quickly they are building their products, rapidly developing and then testing with the military, due to war.

They want to help Ukrainians win quicker, and help them build businesses which the founders are proud of in the future. To do this, Darkstar thinks we need to use all ‘know how’ and capital that can be rapidly made available, worldwide.

What happens at the Darkstar Extreme BootCamp?

Everyone works together as a team, forming new collaborations and in some instances orders were made directly at the event from military units.

Darkstar puts together three key factors needed for success and scaling; Experts from the frontline, the defence companies, and western entrepreneurs and investors into one space.

The event is free of charge for all attendees, and they are one of the only bootcamps and investment group that isn’t focused only on dual use, they will work with single use products across all product areas, software or hardware.

Their key element and approach is speed.

Darkstar has already seen in Ukraine that there are very talented teams, and they are focused on giving them practical help on how they can build their team and business.

The bootcamp hosts a number of practical masterclasses over its duration, covering subjects such as ‘How to build and scale a team, how to keep them motivated’.

Subjects like, How to sell to NATO, what to focus on, what you should be thinking about. E.G if you want to grow internationally, you need to be thinking now, as this is a very long process

They also covered topics around grants that are increasingly becoming more available across Europe to help defense tech companies grow.

The event also guided attendees on how to raise money quicker and better, covering topics such as ‘being attractive to investors’, ‘how to create the perfect story and 3 minute pitch’. Darkstar does this in a very personalised way,  providing regular pitch practising sessions throughout the event and face to face mentoring sessions with experienced people.

Bootcamp Collaboration

One of the uniqueness of the event was how they got all the teams to collaborate together. Darkstar sees a number of companies doing similar projects. At their  bootcamp they got them working together to build a bigger solution that gives the military exactly what they want.

They are also continuing to build a community with their attendees, having regular update calls with them and continuing to help them accelerate their progress and importantly, get more testing in combat with the military.

Next Darkstar event – applications open

 The website for Darkstar is up now, and applications are now been taking for the next bootcamp later this year.

We do need our start up applications to speak English: https://darkstar.ee/

You have until the 15^th September 2024 to apply!