Ukrainian drone maker lands $10.4 million funding round

Ukrainian drone maker Buntar Aerospace raised $10.4 million in funding from Axon Enterprise and Munkene AS, placing the round among the six largest disclosed funding rounds in Ukraine this year, according to venture capital firm Defence Builder, citing data from Vestbee.

The full list, in order of size: language-learning platform Preply at $150 million, UFORCE at $50 million, streaming platform HolyWater Tech at $22 million, quantum computing startup Haiqu at $11 million, Buntar Aerospace at $10.4 million, and Farsight Vision at $7.9 million. Four of the six companies on the list work in defense technology.

Buntar Aerospace said the funding will go toward scaling its reconnaissance drones and mission software. The round was led by Axon Enterprise, the U.S. company best known for making Tasers and police body cameras, along with Munkene AS, a Norwegian investment vehicle whose sole disclosed investment to date is Buntar. Munkene has also been involved in setting up Gardar, a separate $92 million Norwegian fund launched this year specifically to back Ukrainian defense startups.

Defence Builder, an early-stage venture fund, said it invested in Buntar before rounds of this size were available to Ukrainian defense companies.

“That is the part of the work we care about: the capital that arrives when the technology is validated but the market has not yet priced it,” Defence Builder wrote. “Strategic investors like Axon come in after that question is answered, and the gap between those two moments is exactly where an early fund is either useful or it is not.”

Defence Builder said the rounds raised by Buntar, UFORCE and Farsight Vision show that Ukrainian defense financing is shifting from small individual checks toward institutional venture capital and strategic corporate investment, describing the shift as a change in the type of capital entering the sector rather than simply the total amount.

Ukrainian defense technology companies attracted more than $129 million in grants and equity funding in 2025, an increase of 119 percent from $59 million the year before, according to figures cited by Defence Builder. Foreign investors accounted for 49 percent of that funding. Separately, professional services firm KPMG recorded four Ukrainian defense tech transactions above $5 million in the first half of 2026, compared with one such transaction in the first half of 2025.

Defence Builder credited Buntar Aerospace co-founders Ivan Kaunov and Bohdan Sas in its announcement. The firm did not disclose Buntar’s valuation following the round or specific production or delivery targets tied to the new funding.