Ukraine's 'Amazon for war'

Soldiers can use points to buy drones, robots, electronic warfare devices

🎯 Three-Shot Burst

The U.S. Army Secretary says major defence contractors have “conned the U.S. military” into buying extremely expensive equipment, even when far cheaper commercial alternatives existed.

So what?: This is why defence startups are gaining global traction: they deliver fast cycles, modular systems, and cost-effective capabilities without legacy overheads.

Ukraine moved into this model earlier than anyone else. Due to existential necessity, its startups operate with speed, vertical integration, and real combat feedback, but they also work inside a market structure designed for competition and transparency.

BRAVE1 Market, often called the Amazon for the military, has become a place where:

• dozens of solution providers compete purely on performance

• pricing and capabilities are open and comparable

• end-users choose what actually works in real combat

• no one wins due to legacy status, lobbying power, or political weight

In such an environment, the kind of procurement inefficiencies that western countries are now confronting simply can’t take root.

Bottom Line: Earlier in the war, Ukraine launched the BRAVE1 Market, a first-of-its-kind program that awards “ePoints” to soldiers for killing Russian troops or destroying their equipment and verifying the successful hit by uploading drone footage to a military network. Ukrainian soldiers will soon be able to purchase weapons from an online “Amazon”-style marketplace using points earned for evacuating wounded comrades from the battlefield with ground robots.

Related:

• Home & Away:

  • 🍁 Beyond Programs of Record: The Utility Layer Emerging in Modern Defence

  • 🇺🇸 The Department of War is being redesigned to now operate at the speed of Silicon Valley. A new Pentagon task force established to counter threats posed by small drones has announced the creation of a hub for agencies to purchase counter-drone equipment and ways to improve how these systems work together

The Department of War Just Shot the Accountants and Opted for Speed

• The Most Valuable Military Contractor Doesn’t Make Bombs or Guns… Its CEO is also a character

• Emil Michael, former chief business officer at Uber and now US Under Secretary of War for Research and Engineering, announces 6 Critical Technology Areas for the War Department

• Europe possesses latent industrial capacity and strategic potential that could restore allied scale if mobilised effectively. Defence buildouts, advanced manufacturing, and digital finance offer catalysts for revitalising transatlantic coordination:

Allied Scale and the Future of the West

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Dominion Dynamics is expanding our engineering team and we’re looking for ambitious Canadians who want to build sovereign technology for the future of national defence.

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💾 Drone Detection Hackathon

Ten standout teams from over 170 applicants competed in the RMUS/AVSS Ottawa Defence Hackathon, dubbed “Shazam for Drones,” last weekend, where students and recent grads faced a real-world challenge: detecting and classifying small airborne threats using audio data.

Armed with a nine-year audio library from AVSS, teams from leading Canadian institutions—including uOttawa, Carleton, Waterloo, Queen’s, Ontario Tech, Cégep de l’Outaouais, and Lakehead—had one day to train their models and present to a panel of six expert judges. Sponsored by Area X.O by Invest Ottawa, AVSS, Kongsberg Geospatial, RMUS Canada, ThinkOn, and NORRG, and supported by The Icebreaker, the hackathon awarded $20,000 in total prizes. Top honours went to Ctrl+Alt+Defend ($10,000), followed by VCLab-ShazNet ($6,000), while WATheDrone, AAAAK, and AALIS shared third place, and Auralis Systems earned Best Presenter.

Related:

• Defence Tech Lures Students Looking for ‘Mission Over Money’

• Volatus Aerospace CEO Glen Lynch discusses the company’s latest developments and strategic direction

• Transport Canada has updated regulations to reshape the landscape of unmanned aviation, becoming effective just days ago on November 4

• Ukraine’s drone war lesson for Europe: Technology is nothing without training

• CHAOS Industries Raises $510 Million to Expand Drone Threat Detection Radar Systems

• How American and Chinese Drone Arsenals Stack Up

• Born compliant: Join Area X.O, operated by Invest Ottawa, and TÜV SÜD for an exclusive Defence EMC/EMI, Structural and Environmental Workshop designed for innovators developing mission-critical technologies

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🤝 Deal Corner

KON Aerosystems – portable electromagnetic UAV launch system

Toronto-based KON is building eTOLS, a fully electric, field-deployable electromagnetic launcher that gives fixed-wing and hybrid drones runway-free, high-cadence deployment with 3–5× more range than VTOL and faster turnarounds than pneumatic catapults.

The team has six LOIs across defence and commercial operators (ISR, logistics, C-UAS) and is now building both a 5 kg FPV/Group-1 variant and a 25 kg demonstrator for early partners in North America, Europe, Africa, and Central Asia.

Currently raising a US$500k pre-seed to complete demonstrators, run LOI pilots, and deliver first units.

Reply to this email to connect with founders Jovan Phull & Javad Siahkamari.

Related:

• NATO Innovation Fund hires new partner from BP Ventures

• Canada in the running to headquarter new multinational defence bank

• Top defence official says investor interest in Ottawa’s defence plans is growing

• CIBC’s Tech & Innovation Capital Markets Group: The systems, infrastructure, and expertise demanded by the Golden Dome align well with the core competencies of several of Canada’s aerospace, engineering, and technology firms

• Calian enters agreement with Plantro to shake up board, sell ‘non-core’ assets… Calian chooses Ottawa defence-tech startup Tactiql as first Ventures partner

• MDA Space reports 45-percent year-over-year revenue growth in Q3 after losing EchoStar contract

• NordSpace awarded $1M by Canadian Space Agency to advance additive manufacturing for rocket propulsion

• Autonomous Military Vehicle Startup Notches Over $1 Billion Valuation in New Deal

• Anduril Unveils Omen Hybrid-Electric Vertical Takeoff And Landing Drone

• In-Q-Tel: What does it truly take to bridge the gap between rapidly evolving tech and national security needs?

• The European founders making defence angel bets

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⚔️ Combat Readiness

Dominion Dynamics’ CEO thinks defence is a “generational opportunity” for Canadian entrepreneurs

Related:

• Arctic chill: NATO should devote more focus to defence in the Arctic, Anand says… Russia to Provide Arctic Navigation Training to Chinese Seafarers… China, Russia spying on governments, businesses in Canada’s Arctic: CSIS director… Navy commander insists Canada should buy unmodified submarines

• Going Nuclear: Nuclear Security Implications of AI and Emerging Technologies: A FutureSafe Analysis of Risks and Opportunities… A New Atomic Alliance: The U.S., Japan, and Canada in the Great Nuclear Reshoring:

A New Atomic Alliance: The U.S., Japan, and Canada in the Great Nuclear Reshoring

…If you’ve ever wondered where Canada’s nuclear story truly began, this is it.

• A disgraced engineer, a young financier, and a risk-taking bureaucrat can teach us about defence innovation:

The Unlikely Team That Built an Ironclad and Saved the Union

• UGV With a Machine Gun Replaced Infantry and Held a Position for a Month and Half

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Barrack Hill: Navigating Canada’s defence and procurement landscape with precision.

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🔫 Hot Shots

• Grey war: The age of AI-powered cyberattacks is here… Europe Is in a Gray Zone Between War and Peace… The AI Cold War That Will Redefine Everything… Avoiding ‘expensive failures’: feds risk losing millions in taxpayer dollars if ball dropped on AI procurement, says new report… US Army officer with Indo-Pacific experience emerges as potential Cyber Command, NSA pick… Chinese Hackers Used Anthropic’s AI to Automate Cyberattacks

• Critical materials: Henry Gladwyn on how AI exposes the limits of today’s infrastructure and provides the mechanism to restore it. Why reindustrialisation is no longer optional; and why rare earths, battery materials, and advanced packaging are the first proof points of a much bigger cycle… Metamaterials Revolutionize Defence Tech… Entrenched Tactics and Comparative Advantage: An Economic View of Warfare… Critical minerals join Major Project Office’s to-do list

• Bad kids table: Putin Is Turning Eighth-Grade Classrooms Into Army Training Grounds… Russia Creates New Military Branch Dedicated To Drone Warfare… Ukrainian Mavics and Russia’s Rubikon

• Buy Canadian: The problem with Buy Canadian? Nobody can agree on what ‘Canadian’ means… An important GoC update regarding the use of cloud technology on controlled goods has been released

• Here and there: Trust in Canada’s military sits at 75 per cent, while just 47 per cent say they trust the federal government in Ottawa… Swedish king’s visit highlights growing Canadian interest in Saab military aircraft… 10,000 new jobs could soon come to Canada, Swedish manufacturer says… Canada not ruling out fighter jet purchases from several companies with F-35 decision still pending… Ottawa defence procurement risks being mired in bureaucratic mess… Get your ticket to Aerospace Unplugged 2025 and hear Sentinel R&D CEO Katheron Intson discuss ‘Drone Warfare: Sovereign, Attritable Aerospace Manufacturing’… Davie is hiring a Director, Industrial and Technological Benefits… Wuxly Pivots Business Model to Defence and Aerospace… Canada’s 2025 budget delivers on defence spending – but the devil will be in the details

• Maritime security: Looking to scale your maritime safety and security technologies into Europe? Join the Canadian Technology Accelerator (CTA) in Germany and Finland

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If you’ve got battlefield intel, classified tips, or just want to call in an airstrike on our typos, hit “reply” and sound off. Whether it’s a new tech sighting, a rumour from the mess hall, or feedback on our comms, we want your SITREP.