Growing Ukraine's Military Tech Industry
Вставка
- Опубліковано 25 тра 2024
- Don’t miss our newsletter! www.themerge.co/
Mike hosts Perry Boyle to dive into Ukraine’s rapidly developing defense industry.
Perry co-founded MITS Capital (Military Innovation Technology Solutions), a US venture that just established the first defense tech accelerator in Ukraine. MITS’ vision is to revolutionize Ukraine’s defense industry by investing in Ukrainian defense tech startups, nurturing and developing the ecosystem, and rapidly maturing and scaling military tech solutions to the front lines.
They are raising a $50M fund and have just selected the first cohorts for the accelerator.
We talk about the industry's ins and outs, compliance and regulatory blockers, the promising upside, Ukraine’s insanely fast innovation cycle, key investing insights, “winning” vs. “losing” the war, investing in peace, and much more.
This episode is PACKED with insights, but we still had some fun along the way. You should expect nothing less!
For those interested in #military #ukraine #warfare #nationalsecurity #defense #nationaldefense #investing #venture #vc
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Links
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• Mike Benitez (LinkedIn) / mike-benitez
• Perry Boyle (LinkedIn) / perryboyle
• MITS Capital mits.capital
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Show Notes
(01:40) Intro
(02:27) Y Combinator for Ukraine defense tech
(03:10) what is an accelerator?
(04:01) what problem is MITS trying to solve
(05:28) MITS origin story
(09:11) we do read the emails
(10:43) MITS first investment
(11:32) US companies in Ukraine
(11:57) investing in Ukraine
(12:54) buy when the cannons are firing
(13:40) International support
(14:19) the US role
(14:31) Defense Innovation Unit
(15:58) US defense budget pie
(16:23) tech cycle vs. budget cycle
(17:21) adaption and iteration in Ukraine
(17:52) key investing insight
(18:15) tanks
(19:30) winning and losing
(22:35) relevancy through proximity
(23:26) grain and Kevin Bacon
(24:22) 1000 to 5
(25:33) virtuous cycle
(26:20) like Stanford and Silicon Valley
(27:52) red lines and promises
(28:51) partners and allies
(29:29) fixing corruption
(29:57) “new Ukraine”
(31:23) MITS vs Brave1
(33:17) Brave1 year 1 metrics
(34:47) Ukraine’s $10 Billion investing challenge
(39:11) magnets
(40:59) investor beware
(42:17) investing in the victory
(43:10) investing in the peace
(43:23) outro - Розваги
Much appreciated Mike, great and very timely and relevant discussion. Looking at the bigger picture from 50,000 feet, this mil-tech sector that Mr Boyle is helping to seed will play a big part in making up for the shortfall in GDP that all the lost farmland in the agricultural sector in the East has undergone, not only to occupation but mine fields and un-exploded ordnance. Israel would be a good model for Ukraine in this respect, big on mil-tech. We already had a large defence sector inherited from the Soviet Union, ranging up to even small launch vehicles for 5tonne payloads to LEO etc.
Great insight
@@TheMergeMedia The lost arable land (some of the best in the world - Ukrainian "Chernozem" - Black soil) last i looked was 180,000 km^2 or 111,000 miles^2 was mined here. As one British sapper working here put it "Ukraine's mine clearance will outlive us all". That's a big GDP hit for a 600,000 km^2 (370,000 miles^2) country. Gotta make it up somehow & great Americans like Mr Boyle are the answer!
This drone battle space has accelerated extremely quickly in the last couple of year's and is very interesting to watch it evolve.
Absolutely top notch material.... keep up the amazing work.
Thank you, pass the word!
This was great.
I'd love to buy drones from Ukraine rather than China.
I'm very excited to hear that you are working hard on sustainable ways to help Ukraine win this war and rebuild itself afterwards ❤
They need to develop innovative products that they can sell on the international market.
100%
Great guy great cause
Another excellent episode. Keep up the great work gents!
Much appreciated!
Your guests are top tier, man. Thanks for doing this thing so well.
Thank you!
Great episode! My company is working on getting power generation to Ukraine!
Great topic. Thanks!
Glad you liked it!
great info
Very interesting thanks for ur job
Once again, a thoughtful, interesting, and informative discussion. Keep them coming.
The worst case is the Drones will have a stramp that says Made in Occupied Ukraine.
Great information. The world can’t let Russia win.
You guys doing a great job 👏 helping Ukrainian
Lord of War. It's a good movie.
Ukraine's in Europe's back yard. But Europe didn't fully fund their NATO commitments for 3 decades. The US has to defend the Pacific ALSO. If the US has to push troops to Europe and then defend Taiwan, there is a grave problem. Some of us saw this problem with China, a decade ago.
when it comes to venture capital it can be okay, or brutally horrible. venture capital in a capitalist system is not designed to push products...its designed to make money for those who invest.
I have questions regarding where the "value" requirements are optimized.
I think I am your neighbor in the ville.
👽👽👽👽🌎👽👽👽👽
There is something off about the guest. Red flag: a retired IB tried to join the International Legion to fight? He must be suicidal or is lying.
I agree