A significant funding round has been secured by UFORCE, a London-based defence technology firm, with £530 million raised at a valuation of £4.5 billion. The round was co-led by Valor Equity Partners and the UK National Wealth Fund, with participation from the U.S.-Ukraine Reconstruction Investment Fund (URIF). Additional investors, including those from Silicon Valley, Europe, and Asia, such as Menlo Ventures, Xantium, and Hiro Capital, also contributed to the round. Meanwhile, existing investors Shield Capital, Ballistic Ventures, Lakestar, and Squadra increased their stakes in the company.
Originally founded in Ukraine, UFORCE operates major hubs in Kyiv and Washington, DC. The company specializes in developing autonomous uncrewed platforms for sea, land, and air, as well as the accompanying AI software, orchestration, and command-and-control layer that operates them. UFORCE and its investors aim to make defence a hundred times cheaper than offensive operations. The newly acquired funding will enable the company to expand its production capacity across various regions, including the US, Europe, Asia-Pacific, and the Middle East. UFORCE recently announced a partnership with ReconCraft to scale US manufacturing of MAGURA uncrewed surface vessels (USVs).
General (Ret.) Christopher G. Cavoli, former NATO Supreme Allied Commander Europe and a partner at Valor Equity Partners, will join the UFORCE board. The funding will support increased research and development, as well as expanded production of the MAGURA USV, NEMESIS UAV, LIUT UGV, and PREDATOR turret families. UFORCE plans to continue collaborating with partners in allied nations to convert existing maritime and automotive manufacturing capacity to support defence needs.
According to UFORCE, the investment from URIF will support its operations in Ukraine, including staffing, research and development, and new product development. This funding round also allows UFORCE to deepen its role as a founding member of the EU-Ukraine Drone Alliance. Oleg Rogynskyy, chief executive of UFORCE, said: “This investment will help us scale production for Ukraine and bring to allies solutions they can field, integrate and sustain at the speed of modern combat. UFORCE and our investors are united in our determination to make aggression unaffordable.”
It said this distributed capacity will allow continuous production to supply front-line troops with uncrewed systems despite continued attacks in Ukraine.
UFORCE reported that its MAGURA family of uncrewed surface vessels has contributed to the destruction of more than a dozen Russian warships in the Black Sea. Additionally, the company’s NEMESIS Class 1 heavy strike UAV platforms have completed more than 300,000 combat flights and have been adopted across 100+ units.
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