A Ukrainian defense-tech startup that began by mapping Russian trenches for frontline units has closed a €7.2 million ($8.5 million) seed round led by US-based Axon Enterprise and Estonia’s state-backed SmartCap Defence Fund, with participation from Polish, Swiss, and Danish investors.
The deal adds to a surge in private capital flowing into Ukrainian defense companies—from $5 million in 2023 to over $40 million in 2024 to $105 million in 2025, according to Brave1 data reported by Kyiv Post.
“We’re betting on innovation and speed: from idea to product in weeks.”
Farsight Vision’s round, which also drew Polish Radix Ventures, Swiss Anker Capital, Danish Final Frontier, and a reinvestment from Estonian fund Darkstar, pulls investors from five NATO-allied capitals into a single Ukrainian combat-tech company.
Acting Minister of Digital Transformation Oleksandr Bornyakov, who announced the round on Facebook, cast it as proof of Ukraine’s speed advantage. “We’re betting on innovation and speed: from idea to product in weeks,” he wrote—a timeline that Farsight Vision itself illustrates, having gone from a student project to a platform used by over 100 military units in under two years.
From trench maps to autonomous combat systems
Viktoriia Yaremchuk and Volodymyr Nepiuk founded Farsight Vision in 2023 after meeting at the Lviv Business School of the Ukrainian Catholic University. Yaremchuk, one of a growing number of women leading Ukrainian combat-tech companies, serves as CEO.
The platform, according to the company, is now used by more than 100 Ukrainian military and security units.
Their starting point was practical: Ukrainian forces needed faster ways to analyze enemy trenches and positions, but satellite imagery was too slow, and GPS often jammed. So they built software that turns raw drone footage into detailed 3D terrain models and maps in real time—without relying on satellite navigation.
The platform, according to the company, is now used by more than 100 Ukrainian military and security units. At the Brave1 Defense Tech Valley summit last September, Farsight Vision won a startup award for aerial imagery processing.
The startup has also expanded partnerships across NATO countries and signed its first commercial contract in Asia.
The new funding marks a different ambition. The money will go toward automating robotic systems for logistics, navigation, and weapons control—a move from mapping to autonomous combat systems.
According to InVenture, the goal is to combine reconnaissance, target formation with coordinates, target transfer to strike drones, and navigation during the final phase of flight into a single autonomous pipeline. The startup has also expanded partnerships across NATO countries and signed its first commercial contract in Asia.
Ukrainian wartime startups are transforming into global players in defense technology.
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Axon CEO Rick Smith—whose company is known worldwide for Tasers and police body cameras—told InVenture that technology shaped by real combat use evolves faster and with clearer focus.
Mykhailo Fedorov, then Digital Transformation Minister and now Ukraine’s Defense Minister, called it proof that Ukrainian wartime startups are transforming into global players in defense technology.
The Estonian connection
Most coverage describes Farsight Vision as a “Ukrainian-Estonian” company. The label is accurate, but it describes a trajectory, not an origin.
The company was founded in Lviv by two Ukrainian entrepreneurs. Its technology was built for and tested by Ukrainian forces. The Estonian element came later: incorporation as FarsightVision OÜ in Tallinn in July 2024, followed by Estonian state funding—€2 million ($2.4 million) from SmartCap’s Defence Fund in this round, plus earlier grants totaling roughly €1.7 million ($2 million) from Estonia’s applied research program and Defense Ministry, according to Ärileht.
The company plans to expand both sales and product development in Estonia.
Now the Estonian footprint is becoming operational. Brigadier General (ret.) Jaak Tarien, former Estonian Air Force commander and former director of NATO’s Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence in Tallinn, has joined as Head of Strategic Partnerships and is actively recruiting Estonian developers. The company plans to expand both sales and product development in Estonia.
Estonia’s own government frames the deal as helping “Ukraine frontline-tested technology expand to Europe”—perhaps the most precise description anyone has offered. Economy Minister Erkki Keldo called the defense industry “Estonia’s new strength.”
In short: a Ukrainian-founded, Ukrainian-tested startup is building its European expansion through Estonia, backed by real Estonian capital and a serious Estonian hire. “Ukrainian-Estonian” is becoming true.
