London-headquartered defense-technology company UFORCE has raised $700 million in a Series A round at a $6 billion valuation, one of the largest early-stage financings ever closed by a company building autonomous combat systems. The round, announced November 12, 2026, was co-led by Valor Equity Partners and the UK National Wealth Fund, with fresh capital from the U.S.-Ukraine Reconstruction Investment Fund, Menlo Ventures, Xantium and Hiro Capital. Existing investors Shield Capital, Ballistic Ventures, Lakestar and Squadra also increased their stakes, according to UFORCE's announcement.
What does UFORCE actually build?
UFORCE makes a family of uncrewed, AI-piloted platforms that operate across sea, land and air without a human physically on board. The best known is MAGURA, a line of unmanned surface vessels, or USVs, that Ukraine has used to sink or disable more than a dozen Russian warships in the Black Sea. NEMESIS is the company's strike drone, which it says has flown over 300,000 combat missions across more than 100 Ukrainian military units.
UFORCE also builds LIUT, a ground robotic platform used for logistics and combat support, and PREDATOR, a turret system built to shoot down incoming drones. Software ties the four product lines together, handling navigation, targeting and command-and-control so a single operator can potentially run a mix of robotic boats, drones and ground vehicles rather than needing a crew for each.
What separates UFORCE from many defense startups is that its hardware has already been proven in an active war, not just in simulations or test ranges. That combat record is the central pitch it is making to investors, and to the militaries it hopes will buy its systems.
How will the money be used, and who is backing it?
UFORCE describes its mission as making defense "a hundred times cheaper than offensive operations" — producing large numbers of relatively inexpensive autonomous systems that can offset far more costly manned military hardware like crewed warships or fighter jets. The new capital is earmarked for scaling manufacturing of the MAGURA, NEMESIS, LIUT and PREDATOR lines and for expanding sales beyond Ukraine into allied markets.
The investor lineup is notable on its own. The UK National Wealth Fund, a state-backed investment vehicle, co-leading alongside Valor Equity Partners, a growth-equity firm known for early bets on Tesla and SpaceX, signals that governments are now writing large direct checks into autonomous-weapons startups rather than only awarding contracts. UFORCE is led by chief executive Oleg Rogynskyy and runs out of London, with major hubs in Kyiv and Washington, DC, a footprint built to sell into European and American defense budgets alike.
How does this compare to other autonomous-defense raises?
A $700 million Series A and $6 billion valuation put UFORCE in rare company among defense-robotics startups; most rivals needed multiple rounds over several years to approach similar numbers. Competing companies building autonomous strike and surveillance systems include Anduril and Shield AI in the United States, which has itself raised billions for drone autonomy and radar, alongside a cluster of Ukrainian and European firms building cheap, combat-tested drones and ground robots for the same conflict. UFORCE's differentiator is breadth: sea, land, air and counter-drone systems under one company, rather than a single platform chasing one niche.
What happens next?
Expect UFORCE to prioritize manufacturing capacity for MAGURA and NEMESIS first, since both already have documented battlefield demand, while pushing PREDATOR and LIUT toward wider deployment with allied forces. Its dual UK and US hubs suggest the company will chase NATO procurement budgets that are shifting rapidly toward autonomous and lower-cost "attritable" systems, setting up a race with Anduril, Shield AI and a growing field of Ukrainian defense-tech spinouts for the same contracts.