Mikhail Fedorov, former Minister of Defense of Ukraine, announced preparations to launch in Kyiv what he describes as the largest venture fund focused on the Defense Tech sector. This was reported by RBC-Ukraine, citing the politician's press office. According to him, during a series of meetings with venture funds and companies in the Big Tech segment — including Palantir, about which he had previously spoken publicly — it was possible to attract the resources needed to create a fund that will invest in military startups and seek solutions for both current and future national defense challenges.
Announcement of the Defense Tech fund and its mission
Fedorov emphasized that the fund will focus on military startups and on finding technological solutions to the problems facing the defense sector today and tomorrow. "We are launching the Defense Tech Fund very soon. I will be inviting both startups and experts to join it in order to work within the fund," he stated. Thus, the format envisages not only investment but also the involvement of the external expert community in the work of the structure itself.
Three priorities and proactive analytics
The statement mentions three key priorities of the new fund, although their full list is not disclosed in the published text. Separately, Fedorov announced the launch of an analytics center whose task, in his formulation, is to identify the enemy's vulnerabilities and develop methods for seizing the initiative "in the air and on the ground." "The center's task is to use the experience so that we can predict the next steps of the war and proactively generate solutions in order to seize the initiative. That is why there will also be an announcement on this matter soon," he added.
Contradictory data
Open sources contain inconsistencies regarding the timing and parameters of the fund's launch. On the one hand, a number of publications (in particular, Minfin and Korrespondent) reported on the launch in Ukraine of a venture fund for technology startups with a volume of around 50 million euros, dating the event to autumn 2025. On the other hand, in Fedorov's statements published in 2026, the fund is described as a structure that is "soon to be launched," with an invitation to startups and experts, and he himself characterizes it as the "largest" in the Defense Tech direction. The difference in wording — "already launched" versus "soon to be launched" — as well as the absence in the politician's statements of an exact amount and a full list of the three priorities creates a discrepancy in chronology and scale that requires clarification from the structure itself.
Context: ties with Palantir and Alex Karp
The announcement fits within earlier reports that Fedorov is launching his own defense tech company, the first key investor in which, according to previous data, is to be Palantir's head Alex Karp. The totality of these statements points to the formation around the former defense minister of a separate defense-technology cluster combining venture financing, analytics, and direct ties with major Western technology players. The final parameters of the fund, the size of its capital, and the composition of its priorities, according to Fedorov himself, will be announced in the near future.
