Summary
The session’s core message was that investing in Ukrainian defense technology is not a conventional venture theme retrofitted for wartime; it is a mission-driven response to an immediate survival problem, where battlefield urgency can translate into exceptional company-building outcomes. Eveline Buchatskiy explained that her fund was launched directly because of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. With a venture capital background, she and her team concluded Ukraine could not win through conventional systems alone and needed an “asymmetrical technological advantage.” Because no traditional VC was willing to operate on the ground in Ukraine at the time, they opened an office in Kyiv and raised capital from American and European investors, deliberately signaling that Ukraine was investable.
Key Topics
5 key topics from Eveline Buchatskiy and Larissa Holzki at Bits & Pretzels 2026 | Founders Festival in Munich. Thicker branches were mentioned more often in the talk.
Key Takeaways
- Build close to the battlefield to learn faster than distant investors.
- Prioritize cost-effective defense systems before threats become urgent.
- Optimize for mission impact to unlock contracts and valuation growth.
- Keep early-stage defense founders focused on one primary market.
- Move faster than the enemy’s technology cycle or become obsolete.
“I optimize for impact and therefore I will have outsized returns.”
Up Next
Next in agenda
Seed to Scale: Six Years Inside a Founder-Investor Relationship
Also on defense tech
Fireside Chat: Quantum Systems x Felix Haas
Also on venture capital
