1/ 🧵 From a hospital bed after his third concussion fighting near Bakhmut, a Ukrainian warrior sent a LinkedIn message that would become a $5M defense company.
Now he's CEO of British-Ukrainian Trypillian—boosting mil-tech that most VCs won't fund 🧵⤵️
2/ The warrior-turned-CEO is Ivan Matveichenko.
His hospital LinkedIn message went to Brooks Newmark, a former British MP—now his backer.
They saw what VCs missed, as told to @DefenderMediaUA:
Brilliant Ukrainian engineers building weapons with no time for business. ⤵️
3/ So they built Trypillian—named after the ancient civilization that built Europe's first cities in Ukraine 7,000 years ago.
Their mission: buy mil-tech startups and handle everything they hate—sales, legal, fundraising—while the engineers focus on making weapons. ⤵️
4/ Their flagship project, so far: a deep-strike kamikaze drone that makes defense unaffordable.
Enemy's choice: spend 30-50x more to shoot it down, or let it hit.
The key? It flies at "unprecedented altitude"—only high-end air defenses can even touch it.
🎥: unrelated 😎 ⤵️
5/ But battlefield basics matter too. "As an infantryman myself, I know most soldiers rarely see high-tech, AI-powered systems," Ivan says. "For them, it's all about [workhorse] FPVs and 'Baba Yaga'-type [bomber drones]."
So Trypillian teams produce both. ⤵️
6/ Trypillian's model: They acquire tech teams and handle the business side while engineers focus on building products to suit various battle needs.
Two teams already acquired. More coming, thanks to Trypillian chairman Newmark's $5 million investment. ⤵️
7/ Like Thomas Jefferson, Ivan attended the College of William & Mary, @williamandmary, where he earned an MBA.
He was starting a property development firm in Kyiv when Russia attacked. He got his wife to safety, then volunteered to fight.
Which he's doing now—in a new way. ⤵️
8/ Who is @BrooksNewmark? A former Conservative MP (2005-2015), Civil Society minister, and Lord Commissioner, he was doing humanitarian work in Ukraine when Ivan's message arrived.
His Angels for Ukraine NGO helps Ukrainians, kids included, w/PTSD: ⤵️ ukraineangels.org
9/ Trypillian products are battle-tested by Ukrainian forces. "Development is joint: We receive feedback after every mission, review what worked and what didn't," says Ivan, who served in the 10th Mountain Assault Brigade.
This isn't Silicon Valley—It's Defense Tech Valley. ⤵️
10/ The goal for Trypillian? A defense corporation for post-victory.
"When peace comes and domestic demand drops, we'll help Ukrainian defense companies that struggle to enter foreign markets scale globally under our brand," Ivan says. ⤵️
11/ From pre-war property developer to wounded defender to tech CEO—Ivan's journey reflects a new generation of Ukrainian entrepreneurs.
His message to veterans: "Get in touch. We'll either have a role for you now—or soon. Either way, we'll find a way to work together." ⤵️
12/ Read about Trypillian and other brilliant Ukrainian mil-tech startups at Defender Media:
But Ukraine's Khartiia brigade has war-fighting drones on the ground—laying minefields and evacuating the wounded.
Here's the untold revolution, as revealed to @DefenderMediaUA 🧵⤵️
2/ 🇺🇦 Backed by billionaire @VsevolodKozhem1, who donned a uniform himself, the Kharkiv-based Khartiia Brigade attracts poets, rockstars, and tech innovators.
Their motto: "We're building the new Ukrainian army"—using NATO standards while stopping Russian "meat assaults." ⤵️
3/ 🌙 The Night Managers:
Khartiia's ground drones are solving one of war's deadliest problems—logistics under fire.
Every night, each unmanned vehicle hauls 200-500kg per trip—ammo, food, medical supplies—through dangerous terrain to reach the warfighters. ⤵️
1/ The UK's @LordAshcroft—billionaire philanthropist—just called Ukraine's Azov commander "one of the most legendary figures of the 21st century."
Smeared by Russia and left-media as 'Nazi,' Azov is the opposite. And it just might be the fighting force the free world NEEDS.🧵⤵️
2/ Lord Ashcroft, Baron of Chichester, met Azov's commander fresh from battle. What he discovered was like a morning ice plunge.
This businessman saw that Azov is tyranny's great enemy.
Maybe this is why Washington elites have helped the Kremlin smear Azov for years. ⤵️
3/ First, let's see how Washington hurt Ukraine's Azov.
Democratic Rep. @RoKhanna led the charge, saying in 2018: "I am very pleased that the recently passed omnibus prevents the U.S. from providing arms and training assistance to the neo-Nazi Azov Battalion."
1/ How do you out-innovate a larger, better-funded competitor when failure means death?
Ukraine's Nemesis regiment cracked the code—becoming perhaps the most effective unit at defeating Russian drones by thinking like a startup, not a military unit.
Here's their playbook 🧵⤵️
2/ At a Kyiv mil-tech meetup, three defense innovators revealed what's working:
⚫️ Artem Martynenko, MoD Innovation Centre;
⚫️ Artem Belenkov, Nemesis regiment; &
⚫️ "Chicago," IT specialist turned special forces
Here's what they've learned, as told to @DefenderMediaUA ... ⤵️
3/ Meet Delta: Ukraine's battlefield "operating system" connecting drones, cameras, and sensors into one real-time platform.
It's in 90% of units. Some like Nemesis are power users, many others just use basics.
Which brings us to the hard lesson about adopting innovation ⤵️
1/ 🧵 "Bring your military tech to Ukraine. Let it fail. Don't be afraid to say, 'I brought my stuff to Ukraine and it failed, but we stayed and learned ... and now it is that much better.'"
American investor Deborah Fairlamb says what many Western firms won't admit. 🧵 ⤵️
2/ Deborah Fairlamb, an American who lived in Kyiv before the full-scale war and chose to stay, is co-founder of @greenflagvc, which brings investments to battlefield-proven Ukrainian tech.
On Jonathan Fink's @CurtainSilicon, she reveals what the West needs to learn ⤵️
3/ "My LinkedIn feed is just full of [all of these new European defense tech companies] and I can just go through and I'm like, oh, no, electronic warfare [protection]? Nope. They fly with GPS? Nope. This isn't going to work. It's a closed system. They can't do any updates." ⤵️