Brave1, the national defence technology cluster in Ukraine, has announced the resumption of its grant program for domestic defence tech companies and startups. The program provides significant grants ranging from USD 13,000 to USD 210,000.
To receive a grant, Ukrainian developers must be official participants of the Brave1 platform, undergo defence expertise, and receive an appropriate evaluation based on the results of the expertise. The grant amount depends on the score received. Specifically, for a grant of 500,000 UAH, the project must score at least 4 points, while for a grant of 8 million UAH, the project must score at least 7 points.
Priority areas for grants include:
(i) Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) – development of "deep strikes," drone carriers with repeaters, aerostats, anti-aircraft drones, training UAVs, and reconnaissance-strike complexes.
(ii) Robotic Systems (RS) – anti-aircraft turrets, strike, reconnaissance, engineering, and multifunctional complexes.
(iii) Water Drones – carrying various types of weapons (MANPADS, MLRS, UAVs, RS), as well as performing functions for mining, demining, and logistics.
(iv) Electronic Warfare (EW) – comprehensive systems for countering strike UAVs, automatic detection and suppression of control channels.
(v) Missile Weapons and Ammunition – development of various missiles for MANPADS, SAMs, MLRS, as well as for targeting airborne objects, armoured vehicles, and infantry.
(vi) Artificial Intelligence (AI) – use of AI for autonomous task execution of UAVs, drone swarms, EW systems, and cybersecurity.
(vii) Reconnaissance and Identification – technical means for reconnaissance, automatic object recognition, and multi-band radars using machine learning.
(viii) Mine Clearance and Protection – development of systems for demining, as well as protection measures against drones and EW.
Technologies – navigation systems, communication systems for unmanned systems, power units for UAVs and missiles, propulsion and launch engines, directed energy weapons, camouflage technologies for countering reconnaissance, etc.