Dear Investors of D3,
This update comes with a short delay, as the past weeks have been filled with extensive travel during conference season. As I was leaving Kyiv in the early hours of Sunday, the city came under yet another massive attack—643 drones and missiles launched primarily against the capital.
The very next day in London, while moderating a panel at the Resilience Conference alongside members of Ukraine’s 3rd Army Corps Air Defense Training Center and the Nemesis Regiment, I asked a simple question:
What if the exact same attack had struck London yesterday? How would the city defend itself?
The uncomfortable truth is that London—and most European capitals—could not. Not at a sustainable cost of mission, not multiple times per week, and not against unpredictable targets beyond critical infrastructure.
Ukraine today has over 100,000 people enlisted in its air defense forces—larger than the standing armies of most European nations.
At D3, we are investing in the technologies that address this new reality. One of them, Cambridge Aerospace, emerged from stealth at DSEI in September, unveiling a capability that directly responds to this challenge. (More on this in the portfolio update below.)
D3 at the Resilience Conference 2025. Lessons from Ukraine: How Brigades Deploy and Adopt New Tech
Total = 815 (+42)
🔥 BIG NEWS🔥 Swarmer, Ukraine’s leading drone autonomy and swarming company, has announced its $15M Series A round led by Broadband Ventures (U.S.) — the largest funding round ever raised by a Ukrainian defense tech company. D3 was the very first investor in Swarmer. The lead investor, Broadband, has a strong track record of taking companies public early, with multiple successful listings such as Immunome (IMNM) and ASP Isotopes (ASPI), which got to over $1b valuations in the public market and each raised hundreds of millions of dollars. Swarmer is targeting an IPO by February 2026 (pre-IPO round likely). D3 is exercising its pro rata rights with an additional $877,582 investment. This milestone validates both the strength of the Ukrainian defense tech sector and D3’s early conviction in frontier dual-use innovation.
Cambridge Aerospace staged a highly anticipated debut at DSEI with the launch of its two flagship systems: Skyhammer, designed to counter Shahed-type drones, and Starhammer, built for missile interception. Both systems are distinct in carrying an onboard radar suite, making them unaffected by weather conditions—a major advantage over existing interceptors that rely on computer vision for last-mile targeting. In Ukraine, even the most successful current models are expected to experience a sharp drop in interception rates during winter (80% to as low as 25% under poor visibility). Cambridge’s radar-based guidance preserves accuracy regardless of weather, directly addressing this operational vulnerability.
The company is now moving rapidly toward verticalized production, with plans for multiple manufacturing sites across the UK, Germany, and Poland. It is actively searching for distressed assets in Germany to accelerate local production. In parallel, Cambridge is preparing to launch its own solid rocket motor, Nightstar, at a time when global shortages of SRMs have become a serious bottleneck across the defense industry—even the largest primes have publicly raised red flags. Given this context, Nightstar is expected to attract significant contract interest immediately upon market entry.
To sustain growth, Cambridge is building a dedicated corporate development team to pursue selective acquisitions of complementary technologies and engineering teams. D3 will assist in identifying potential acquisition targets in Ukraine, where unique capabilities and combat-tested innovation can strengthen Cambridge’s roadmap.
We are also supporting the company’s soft landing in Ukraine ahead of their scheduled testing in January 2026. This includes recruiting a Ukrainian Managing Director, connecting the company with air-defense military units, warhead suppliers, the Ministry of Defence, radar targeting data providers, and other key partners. Their deployment and combat use in Ukraine will mark a pivotal milestone—not only for Cambridge Aerospace, but for the broader coalition of allied defense technologies being tested and refined on the frontlines.