Russia's shift toward faster, jet-powered Shahed variants has forced Ukrainian defenders to rethink air defence. The Ukrainian-Lithuanian company Valkyrie Dynamics is tackling the problem with miniature radars that transform affordable drones into all-weather precision interceptors. The startup has now closed a €1M pre-seed round led by Paris-based venture studio Hexa, with backing from defence tech angel investors.

Valkyrie operates from Lithuania but chose to build its physical R&D lab in Kyiv, where the team can iterate on hardware in days rather than months by working directly with frontline operators. The months ahead—October through March, what the team calls "Shahed season"—will bring intensified attacks on Ukrainian cities as longer nights and heavier cloud cover create ideal conditions for drone strikes.

The weather problem

Modern air defence is moving away from multi-million-dollar missiles toward mass-produced, low-cost autonomous interceptors. Yet most of these systems still depend on optical and thermal cameras, which become useless in heavy rain, fog, smoke and snow. Analysis shows that bad weather can reduce drone visibility by up to 80 per cent beyond a few dozen metres. Meanwhile, Russia's newer jet-powered Shahed variants outpace the interceptors that traditional camera-based systems can catch. Defeating these threats requires both faster, more nimble interceptors and sensors capable of tracking high-speed targets regardless of weather.

Heimdall: radar in the nose cone

Valkyrie's answer is Heimdall, an onboard terminal guidance radar seeker built specifically for FPV interceptors and autonomous interception platforms. The device sits in the interceptor's nose cone and operates in the final stages of an intercept. When an interceptor launches with only an approximate target location, the operator typically navigates manually using thermal cameras during the last kilometre—a method that fails once clouds roll in. In the final 100 to 500 metres, Heimdall provides a radar view, allowing the operator to see and engage the target even when traditional cameras cannot. The radar transmits radio-frequency waves that pass through conditions opaque to conventional imaging.

Where competitors offer expensive ground-based radars or heavy sensors designed for civil drones, Valkyrie's approach is lean and affordable. Heimdall weighs around 100 grams and carries a target price below €300 per unit at volume. The seeker supports both piloted FPV navigation and autonomous flight when integrated with a partner's guidance module, moving low-cost interceptors toward greater autonomy while keeping the final engagement decision with a human pilot or the interceptor manufacturer's systems.

From factory floor to funding

Founder and CEO Marcin Kovalevskij trained as an engineering physicist and spent his early career building electronics and embedded flight systems at CNRS and Exotrail. Conversations with Ukrainian combat officers at the European Defence Tech Hackathon in London in 2025 inspired him to develop the Heimdall concept on weekends from Lithuania, funding the work himself initially.

Once he had saved enough, Kovalevskij packed his equipment into two suitcases and moved to Kyiv to establish Valkyrie's R&D lab. For the first five months, he slept on the floor of a factory that had previously sustained missile damage. By October 2026, Valkyrie had built a working prototype and entered Hexa Sprint Defense, a specialised acceleration programme for early-stage European defence and dual-use technology startups.

Our mission is to make mass-scale air defence more affordable and expendable. We want to replace $3 million missiles with low-cost drone interceptors guided by more accessible radar technology. Giving these systems better sensors, and eventually fusing those with other components, is what will push the next stage of drone interception. It will make interceptors more autonomous and able to keep up with faster, jet-powered threats.

Marcin Kovalevskij, founder and CEO of Valkyrie Dynamics

Integration and expansion

Guillaume Lerouge, Partner at Hexa VC, commented on the investment: "At Hexa Sprint Defense we build companies alongside founders, from the first customer to the first factory. Valkyrie is solving a problem every European army is about to face: drones that hide in the weather. They're building it from Kyiv, where the feedback loop is measured in days, not years. We're proud to have them as the first Ukrainian team in the programme."

Valkyrie is currently integrating Heimdall with companies developing guidance modules and interceptors. The company recently conducted flight tests with Korven Systems, a Ukrainian-Estonian developer of autonomy systems for interceptor drones. Looking forward, Valkyrie's roadmap includes next-generation seekers with extended detection range and a wider field of view, plus plans to open European technical integration hubs in late 2026 to support NATO procurement programmes.

The €1M funding will support manufacturing the first version of the radar seeker, ongoing product development and team expansion.

Source: Tech.eu