Best of LinkedIn: Defense Tech CW 34/ 35

00:00:00: This episode is provided by Thomas Allgaier and Frenes, based on the most relevant LinkedIn posts about defense tech from CW-ThirtyFour and ThirtyFive.

00:00:08: Frennes is a BtoB market research company that supports ICT providers with a structured Defense Market entry framework designed to move them from European defense opportunity landscape to qualified ministry conversations within six to eight weeks.

00:00:21: you can find more info in description.

00:00:24: All right, so setting the stage for you listening today.

00:00:27: We are doing a deep dive into the absolute top defense tech trends that are just dominating the conversation across LinkedIn Right now.

00:00:33: Yeah exactly I mean we're looking at real unfiltered discussions from founders policy makers military strategists.

00:00:40: and really The mission of Today's Deep Dive is to unpack this massive rapidly closing gap between battlefield innovation And traditional institutional procurement.

00:00:50: And if you're a digital transformation or tech professional, You really need to understand how hardware software and this huge influx of capital are intersecting To completely redefine modern defense.

00:01:02: I mean, it's wild.

00:01:04: Let's just start with the economics and the sheer speed of drone interception because

00:01:09: mass-speed

00:01:11: and cost asymmetry?

00:01:12: They are fundamentally breaking traditional air defense.

00:01:15: Breaking is definitely the right word for it.

00:01:18: Dmitriy Ospiridakos shared this brilliant analogy in our sources that frames it perfectly.

00:01:22: He basically compared The Rise Of Cheap Drones to how gunpowder completely rendered medieval knights obsolete.

00:01:29: Oh wow!

00:01:29: That's a good way to look at

00:01:31: Because think about the resources you needed to field a night back then.

00:01:34: You know, decades of training immense wealth heavy iron armor specialized war horses.

00:01:39: It was this massive centralization of capital.

00:01:41: but gunpowder.

00:01:42: Gunpowder was just cheap chemistry Yeah.

00:01:44: And today?

00:01:45: A hundred dollar drone is that gunpower

00:01:47: exactly?

00:01:48: it doesn't need to physically destroy a high value platform like a billion-dollar destroyer To be strategically devastating

00:01:55: Right.

00:01:55: It just has to force a disproportionate response, like if an adversary launches I don't know...a thousand dollar drone and forces you to fire three million-dollar interceptor missile Just shoot it down.

00:02:07: Well the adversary wins that economic exchange every single time.

00:02:10: Yeah You'd run out of missiles before they ran out of drones.

00:02:13: And this mass is scaling up so fast.

00:02:17: Glenn McCartan pointed out that swarm control is really moving from concept to reality.

00:02:21: We're looking at single operators commanding scores of drones with design targets pushing past five hundred autonomous units.

00:02:27: wait,

00:02:28: Five Hundred Autonomous Units controlled by one person?

00:02:30: Yeah working in a coordinated mesh yeah.

00:02:32: and managing five hundred units isn't just about giving an operator more screens right.

00:02:36: it requires immense localized computing power.

00:02:39: the swarm has to navigate pick targets and de-conflict its own flight paths instantly.

00:02:44: Yeah, our legacy systems were not built for that.

00:02:45: but you know looking at the sources I have to challenge The Current Defense paradigm a bit here because Colin Carroll had this huge critique.

00:02:53: he argues That if we're fighting gunpowder with knights Our current point defense systems are just missing the mark entirely.

00:02:59: How so?

00:03:00: Well, he says systems designed for FPV first-person view drones are utterly failing against fast low altitude shahead class threats.

00:03:09: And those are what cause the vast majority of attrition.

00:03:12: Ah yeah that is a crucial distinction because an fpv drone Is you know basically lightweight commercial quadcopter strapped with explosives.

00:03:20: You can take that down with a relatively small kinetic impact But a shahed class munition That's essentially a heavy long range poor man's cruise missile.

00:03:29: Right, it flies low carries.

00:03:31: a massive warhead has significant forward momentum.

00:03:33: exactly

00:03:34: if you hit a Shahid with a lightweight interceptor right over the target The kinetic energy might just carry that burning Explosive wreckage straight into building.

00:03:42: You were trying to protect anyway

00:03:44: which means Interceptors need the sheer speed To engage these threats way further out right?

00:03:48: Like before they even enter their terminal dive.

00:03:51: And Aviv Barzohar highlighted a system from quantum systems called the Apex Record Hunter, it's hitting six

00:03:58: hundred and ninety nine kilometers per

00:04:12: hour.

00:04:13: Wow!

00:04:18: Throwing metal at metal isn't the only way to solve this, non-kinetic and passive solutions are entering the fray.

00:04:23: Pascal M brought up Reethion's reusable Coyote Block III NK.

00:04:28: And it doesn't use explosives!

00:04:29: It uses high power microwaves to burn out drone electronics.

00:04:32: Oh that smart.

00:04:33: so it changes cost per kill equation because interceptor doesn't blow itself up

00:04:37: Exactly...and Jordan Lin mentioned another wild concept SonicFly.

00:04:41: Its a passive acoustic system So allows drones track each other using sound completely bypassing GPS and active emissions.

00:04:48: That's incredible.

00:04:49: Speaking of avoiding active emissions, this brings me to my favorite example.

00:04:52: Tim Desider broke down how Vernia Systems Archimedes IA Seeker actually utilizes a hundred and fifty euro commercial traffic radar module from RF Beam...

00:05:02: A traffic radar?

00:05:03: Like the ones that just count cars on the highway!

00:05:05: Literally the exact same unglamorous tech.

00:05:08: and they prove that this commercial hardware can be repurposed for one kilometer grown interception.

00:05:12: That is wild!

00:05:14: And you know, this grassroots innovation is quickly consolidating in an institutional level.

00:05:18: Ariel Peretz discussed the Pentagon's new QAZ.MIL marketplace.

00:05:22: They are basically organizing a seventy-five billion dollar counter drone sector.

00:05:26: Yeah

00:05:27: making it a vetted catalog... ...and Alex Clark noted that Allen Control Systems Bullfrog M- two forty joined the JITF.

00:05:34: four oh marketplace.

00:05:35: Once you're on those lists, the commercial scale is massive.

00:05:38: Definitely Angus Bean reported that Drone Shield hit a hundred and twenty five point eight million dollars in revenue.

00:05:44: That's up seventy four percent.

00:05:45: And they already have one hundred eleven percent of their FY twenty-twenty five Revenue committed for FY twenty twenty

00:05:51: six?

00:05:51: That Is just explosive growth.

00:05:53: but You know these marketplaces and hardware innovations They aren't happening at a vacuum.

00:05:57: The rawest most rapid testing ground For all this is Ukraine where innovation cycles are being compressed from literally years down to weeks.

00:06:04: Yeah, Ukraine is serving as the ultimate accelerator.

00:06:07: They are completely bypassing traditional procurement timelines.

00:06:11: Viktor Sabaldashov detailed the structure of Brave E-One which is Ukraine's central defense innovation hub.

00:06:19: they connect twenty five hundred companies with a due diligence process of just one and half months

00:06:24: Just one and a half months.

00:06:25: I mean, for context the traditional Western military can take years just to write The Requirements document.

00:06:30: Oh totally.

00:06:31: And Arda Miraz and Martin Joitsar who recently joined the Ukrainian startup fund board They both echoed how this structure is successfully funding hundreds of companies To build thousands of solutions at unprecedented speeds.

00:06:44: Yeah!

00:06:44: And the sheer scale Of this grassroots production Is mind-blowing.

00:06:47: Nazari Frekinek shared that his team built fifteen thousand drones.

00:06:51: That's roughly a quarter annual output.

00:06:54: Wow, right?

00:06:55: And they deployed them across fifteen brigades and They did this despite being rejected by Y Combinator

00:07:00: five times.

00:07:01: she goes to show they didn't wait for permission and David H. Petraeus noted how Ukraine's recent August twenty-four parade really showcased these unmanned ground air and maritime systems including an aerial swarm.

00:07:13: Yeah Doug Livermore added some tactical context of that too.

00:07:16: he explained How Ukrainian heavy bomber drones are now dropping munitions directly into Russian bunkers Which, if you think about it renders traditional overhead fortifications completely vulnerable.

00:07:28: It fundamentally breaks the concept of a bunker... ...it

00:07:30: really does!

00:07:31: By the way uh.. If your finding this breakdown useful for your own market intelligence make sure to subscribe so that we catch future additions on these deep dives.

00:07:39: Yeah definitely subscribe but as this scales there's a grim reality here which is hybrid warfare blurring lines.

00:07:47: Chad McCoy reported on Russian strikes hitting civilian e-commerce hubs.

00:07:52: We're talking intertop, Toyota and LIQ UI MLE warehouses.

00:07:57: Just civilian warehouses?

00:07:58: Why?

00:07:59: Simply because dual-use logistics flow through them.

00:08:02: The adversary doesn't care if there's a civilian logo on the roof.

00:08:05: If the supply chain supports the war effort It is target

00:08:09: Right which raises huge question!

00:08:11: If front line blurring between civilian and military supply chains in Ukraine Are we seeing that exact same blur globally In our critical infrastructure?

00:08:20: Oh, absolutely.

00:08:21: Kristof Schumm investigated the Leipzig drone incident.

00:08:24: A GRU-linked drone reached a Ukrainian Antonov and a DHL freighter in Germany deep in NATO territory.

00:08:32: Wow

00:08:33: And the vulnerability isn't just physical right?

00:08:36: Dr.

00:08:36: Jeanine Johnson detailed a cyber attack where Russian actors shut down a Polish CHP plant –a combined heat & power plant.

00:08:43: How did they do that?

00:08:45: They managed to put the Siemens PLCs, the programmable logic controllers into stop mode.

00:08:51: It proves that cryptographic trust just isn't enough anymore.

00:08:54: She argued that critical infrastructure requires protocol-aware behavioral monitoring.

00:08:59: So instead of just checking the ID at the door, you have to monitor what the user does once they're inside a system?

00:09:04: Exactly!

00:09:04: You monitor the intent of command and this blurring.

00:09:07: civilian military & commercial tech is forcing traditional defense primes and national governments completely overhaul how it operates.

00:09:15: Yeah, these massive primes are scrambling to adapt their rigid structures.

00:09:18: Katelyn Hayden gave a really interesting behind-the-scenes look at BAE systems.

00:09:22: they successfully executed three major events simultaneously.

00:09:25: Oh I read that A UK prime minister visit Toa nuclear sub facility on the exact same day as there.

00:09:31: half year financial results right

00:09:33: yeah plus a trade show launch.

00:09:35: Her takeaway was that corporate resilience now requires decentralized trust.

00:09:39: Teams have to be empowered to make decisions on the ground without running everything up the chain,

00:09:43: because the bottlenecks would just crush them otherwise.

00:09:46: and they're also leveraging digital engineering in M&A to buy speed.

00:09:50: Prash Sharma detailed Airbus acquiring cybersecurity firms Ultra INC and Quark's lab.

00:09:56: And Lydia Morris shared how Raytheon UK digitally engineered The Red Kite Weapon.

00:10:01: They adapted the U.S.

00:10:02: Stormbreaker airframe for European F- Thirty five and Typhoon fleets completely in software

00:10:08: which cuts out years of physical prototyping.

00:10:11: Eric Lai noted Kongsburg's newly acquired zone.

00:10:13: five technologies landed a sixty five million dollar OTA For The CAOS.

00:10:18: Rusty Dagger missile

00:10:19: love that name,

00:10:20: right?

00:10:20: And Patrick Malcore highlighted the US Army allocating A two hundred and forty six million Dollar budget for the affordable high speed strike missile.

00:10:27: the momentum is just

00:10:28: crazy it Is And Lockheed Martin is actively merging commercial tech with defense.

00:10:34: Sarah Bedsal-Hizah and Jonathan Coldwell share details regarding the NetSense system, they use five G and NVIDIA AI to detect drones in urban areas like Miami

00:10:44: Basically turning civilian cell towers into a giant passive radar net.

00:10:48: Exactly, and Darren Cochran pointed out that interoperability is deepening too with European partners generating twenty-five percent of the value add for NATO's projected seven hundred strong F thirty five fleet.

00:11:00: Yeah industries moving incredibly fast but in partially looking at the geopolitical friction in the sources I have to ask Are governments actually enabling this agility or are their own policies creating bottlenecks?

00:11:10: It's

00:11:11: a mix, honestly.

00:11:11: James Schnabel analyzed the American Security Drone Act.

00:11:15: it inadvertently drove US University research drone costs from five thousand seven hundred dollars up to thirty-seven thousand dollars for compliant equivalent.

00:11:22: Ouch!

00:11:23: Praising grassroots researchers right out of the pipeline.

00:11:25: Yeah.

00:11:25: and Andy Kay pointed out massive legal gap in Ireland.

00:11:28: French & British warships protecting coast there have to stay twenty two kilometers because only Irish officers can authorize force.

00:11:35: So you have multi-million dollar Allied warships deployed, but they can't actually engage a threat if it breaches the perimeter.

00:11:41: That's absurd!

00:11:42: Right plus you have friction with public opinion.

00:11:45: Amenshe Abeldon highlighted that Greece signed a three billion euro Israeli air defense deal despite significant public opposition.

00:11:53: Governments are just having to push procurement through regardless of the optics.

00:11:57: Well

00:11:58: top level strategy is definitely trying to catch up.

00:12:00: Prescott-Pollin outlined the new White House strategy prioritizing AI, space and undersea tech.

00:12:06: And what stood out is that they explicitly endorsed fixed price contracts

00:12:10: meaning their tired of cost plus contracts that reward delays

00:12:13: exactly deliver on budget or eat the loss.

00:12:16: meanwhile Elk Schwartz noted the UN and ICRC's urgent appeal to negotiate a legally binding treaty limiting autonomous weapons, because the ethical implications of a swarm operating without a human in The Loop are just

00:12:28: terrifying.

00:12:29: Yeah it's a lot to navigate!

00:12:30: And to fuel all this rapid engineering and strategic maneuvering we're seeing an unprecedented influx of venture capital entering space...

00:12:38: ...the booming defense startup ecosystem.

00:12:41: It is exactly.

00:12:42: Derek Tollett shared an insight from a JP Morgan banker overseeing the one point five trillion dollar initiative.

00:12:49: He stated this is the highest volume of VC backed defense tech companies he has seen in twenty years.

00:12:54: Ivelina Dineva actually quantified that she tracked seventeen new venture funds launched just this year, but are actively writing checks into defense

00:13:02: tech and a lot of their capital was clustering around preven networks.

00:13:05: Alana Gold highlighted The Andral Mafia.

00:13:08: Alumni from Andrewle have collectively raised over five billion dollars.

00:13:12: The autonomous warship maker, Siranik hit a nine point two-five billion dollar valuation and Andrewle itself is reportedly in talks for eight one hundred billion dollar valuations.

00:13:22: Okay, but let me push back on the hype here using Matthew Bernardo's analysis.

00:13:26: Can a four-year old hypersonic static like Castellian really justify a thirteen billion dollar valuation before they've even fielded an operational missile?

00:13:35: Are we watching

00:13:35: capital just completely outpace actual physics in a defense tech

00:13:39: bubble?".

00:13:39: It is totally fair question!

00:13:40: I mean building a software app isn't as same as building vehicle that can survive extreme thermal loads and reality check is even harsher when you shift to space domain.

00:13:48: Yeah, Swarna Jodi Mukherjee pointed out that despite Europe's space budget rising by a third they launched only eight rockets last year compared to the

00:13:56: U.S.'s

00:13:57: one sixty-five.

00:13:58: Eight versus one sixty five?

00:13:59: That is brutal!

00:14:01: Right and Mukherji argues that Europe needs a guaranteed sovereign lane to space.

00:14:06: not just a race to match cost

00:14:07: per kilo but The Executioners drawing fire.

00:14:10: Mark Ciel heavily criticized the Iris II satellite constellation for lacking resilience and costing roughly six point eight million euros per satellite.

00:14:18: That's eight point five times the cost of a Starlink mini V two,

00:14:21: so to synthesize all this capital is definitely abundant but The true test for tech professionals in investors Is deploying it effectively?

00:14:28: To create sovereign resilient capabilities rather than just you know funding comfort which leaves us with a final thought to mull over If a hundred and fifty euro commercial traffic radar can be repurposed to guide a drone interceptor, And civilian e-commerce warehouses are now considered military logistics targets.

00:14:44: Does the concept of purely civilian tech sector even exist anymore?

00:14:49: Moving forward how will your company protect its intellectual property in supply chains In world where every piece technology is inherently dual use.

00:15:01: ICT and Tech Insights, Digital Products & Services AI and Agents Systems Green ICT in Sustainable AI and HealthTech.