Former Ukrainian defence minister Mykhailo Fedorov is launching his own defence-tech company, with Palantir Technologies co-founder and CEO Alex Karp set to become its first major investor. The project was announced after the two men met at Palantir’s office in Washington.
Fedorov has not yet disclosed the company’s name, the size of Karp’s investment, its valuation, the founders’ stakes, its jurisdiction or a specific product line. He has said only that the venture is intended to strengthen Ukraine and build technologies that could also improve the security of allied countries.
An important distinction is that the announced investor is Alex Karp personally. There is currently no public indication that Palantir Technologies itself will take a corporate stake in the new company. Nor has Fedorov disclosed the structure through which Karp will invest or the terms of the deal.
Karp has described the idea as something broader than a conventional defence startup. In his view, Fedorov’s team could turn the knowledge Ukraine has accumulated in modern technological warfare into products that can be used by allied governments. The two men have worked together for about five years.
Daycom’s analysis indicates that Fedorov’s defence-tech company may ultimately be selling something more valuable than a single weapons system: the ability to turn battlefield experience into a scalable technology product at speed. That capability is one of the main reasons Western defence capital is increasingly looking toward Ukraine.
The new company should be distinguished from another project Fedorov is developing — a defence technology investment fund. During his current trip to Washington, he has also been meeting venture funds, entrepreneurs and technology companies in an effort to attract capital for that separate initiative.
Fedorov has said the future fund will not operate like a conventional venture vehicle that simply buys stakes in existing startups. His concept is for the team to create new companies around technologies the battlefield lacks, while also investing Western capital in Ukrainian developers.
He has identified three initial priorities: robotic systems for the front line, jet-powered interceptor drones and low-cost missiles using artificial intelligence. All three reflect the same wartime logic — reduce manpower losses, lower the cost of intercepting Russian weapons and expand Ukraine’s own strike range.
Fedorov has not said whether the newly announced company will become the first business created within that broader investment structure. Publicly, the fund and the defence-tech company are being presented as separate ventures, though their logic clearly overlaps: Western capital, Ukrainian engineering teams and technologies tested in actual combat.
For Karp, this is also not an entry into an unfamiliar environment. His cooperation with Ukraine began in the opening months of the full-scale war. In June 2022, he became the first chief executive of a major Western technology company to travel personally to Kyiv after Russia’s invasion.
At the time, Fedorov was still serving as minister of digital transformation. Ukrainian officials discussed digital government, cyber security and defence applications with Karp, while Palantir expressed interest in joint development with Ukrainian specialists and in expanding its presence in the country.
By 2023, that relationship had become more institutional. Ukraine began working with Palantir on defence and reconstruction projects, including the use of advanced analytics to assess damage, manage large datasets and improve the efficiency of rebuilding.
A separate area of cooperation emerged in humanitarian demining. Ukraine started using large datasets and artificial intelligence to help determine where clearance operations should be prioritised. The resulting platform later combined information from dozens of different sources.
For the new private venture, however, the defence side of the relationship matters most. In May 2026, while still serving as defence minister, Fedorov met Karp again and presented Ukraine’s technological strategy for the war — from air defence to artificial intelligence and battlefield data analysis.
The priorities discussed included more accurate identification of aerial threats, the development of autonomous systems and faster scaling of technologies already proven in combat. Ukrainian officials also spoke about technologies that could eventually serve Ukraine, the United States and other partners.
That is likely where the business model of the new company begins. Ukraine generates an enormous volume of battlefield data and changes drone designs, targeting algorithms, communications systems and electronic-warfare countermeasures at exceptional speed. The challenge is often not invention itself, but converting a solution into a product that can be manufactured and deployed at scale.
Over the course of the war, the Ukrainian state has built mechanisms designed to shorten that path. Brave1 connected military units, developers and state financing, while its marketplace gave frontline formations a direct way to order technologies using combat points. Ukrainian forces have ordered hundreds of thousands of drones and other systems through that framework.
Ukraine has also begun building infrastructure specifically for military AI. More than 100 companies have gained access to structured datasets on aerial targets collected at different times of day, in varying weather conditions and through different sensors, allowing them to train their own models.
Under Fedorov, the Defence Ministry also launched the A1 military artificial-intelligence centre. Its purpose was to combine data, research, battlefield experience and software teams and shorten the distance between a frontline problem and a technological solution that could be tested and scaled quickly.
Fedorov is now attempting to move that logic from government into the private sector. That is a fundamental shift. As a minister, he could influence requirements, procurement, testing and access to military units. A private company will have to prove that a similar tempo can be sustained through markets and outside capital.
Its potential advantage is access to people who did not merely observe the technological war, but helped build the systems that managed it from inside government. At the same time, that creates questions about the rules governing the use of experience, data and technologies developed while Fedorov held public office.
There is currently no public information about which technologies will enter the new business, who will own the intellectual property, or whether it will use systems previously developed by state institutions or private Ukrainian manufacturers. Until the structure is disclosed, it would be premature to draw conclusions.
Access to battlefield data will be equally important. For modern AI systems, real operational data can be more valuable than the algorithm itself. But much of that information is sensitive or classified, meaning a private company cannot simply gain access because its founders previously worked inside government.
A second challenge is the tension between startup speed and the requirements of defence customers. A product may be designed in months, but international sales require certification, industrial capacity, secure supply chains, technology protection and, in many cases, government export approval.
This is where Karp’s involvement may matter far beyond an initial cheque. Palantir has spent years working with governments, militaries and intelligence agencies, and Karp is deeply embedded in the US technology and defence ecosystem. For a Ukrainian company, that could provide a bridge to customers and capital.
It would be a mistake, however, to automatically transfer Palantir’s capabilities to Fedorov’s new venture. No technology partnership between the companies has been announced, nor has there been any disclosure of Palantir software licensing or transfer of its platforms. What is publicly known is Karp’s role as an investor.
For Ukraine’s defence-tech sector, the involvement of an investor of his profile already sends a signal. In 2025, Defense Tech Valley attracted more than $100 million in investment, while Ukraine expanded joint innovation programmes with NATO, Germany and France during 2026.
The sector is gradually moving away from a model focused exclusively on supplying the Ukrainian front toward one built around international scaling. That shift is crucial for startups: domestic wartime demand is enormous but constrained by the state budget, while access to allied markets can support longer production runs and larger pools of private capital.
Karp has effectively articulated that ambition himself: Ukrainian experience should become a product for allied countries. The export proposition may therefore extend beyond drones or missiles to command systems, autonomous algorithms, sensor networks and methods for integrating different weapons and data sources into a single operational architecture.
For Fedorov, the company is also part of his career after leaving government. Alongside his private projects, he has agreed to advise Italy’s Defence Ministry on military innovation, giving him another route for transferring Ukrainian wartime experience directly into allied defence institutions.
That creates an unusual position: a former Ukrainian defence minister is simultaneously building a private defence-tech company, raising Western capital and working with foreign defence structures. The model could accelerate international scaling, but it will also require unusually clear boundaries between roles, interests and access.
The nearest test will not be the reputation of the first investor, but the first product. Until there is a company name, investment amount, team and defined system under development, the project remains a powerful statement of intent. Fedorov has said further details will come later.
But the basic structure is already visible: Ukrainian battlefield experience, Western private capital and access to allied markets. If that model works, Ukraine’s most valuable defence export may ultimately be not a particular drone, but the ability to build new military technologies faster than the battlefield itself changes.
