Tekever Hits USD 6.4 Billion Valuation as European AI Drone Startup Reaps Ukraine War Windfall
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- Tekever mengantongi pendanaan 580 juta dolar AS dengan valuasi 6,4 miliar dolar AS, dipimpin University of California Investments dan Baillie Gifford.
- Lebih dari 50.000 jam terbang operasional drone Tekever tercatat di Ukraina sejak 2022, menjadi bukti uji medan perang yang langka bagi startup pertahanan Eropa.
- Gelombang belanja militer negara-negara Eropa membuka peluang besar bagi industri pertahanan dalam negeri Indonesia untuk meniru model kemitraan startup-teknologi.
Artificial intelligence-based drone developer Tekever officially announced a valuation of USD 6.4 billion (around IDR 99 trillion) after closing a funding round worth USD 580 million. The move marks one of the largest fundings in Europe's defense sector, which is ramping up military spending due to the war in Ukraine.
Tekever, a Portuguese-British joint venture, designs AI-powered autonomous systems, including surveillance drones. Its main claim: its drone fleet has logged more than 50,000 operational flight hours in Ukraine since Russia's full-scale invasion in 2022. That figure sets it apart in a market usually dominated by giant defense contractors.
The funding round was led by University of California Investments and Baillie Gifford, with participation from Merlyn Advisors, Crescent Cove, Ventura Capital, and Iberis Capital. Previously, in July, the UK Ministry of Defence selected Tekever to provide surveillance technology in a program worth up to GBP 400 million (around USD 530 million) over ten years.
Tekever founder and CEO Ricardo Mendes stated that artificial intelligence, autonomy, and sovereign technology capabilities will be the foundation of security for democratic societies in the coming decade. According to him, this capital injection allows the company to move faster, expand its scale, and build a global technology leader from Europe.
"European security will increasingly depend on the ability to build technology companies capable of innovating quickly, operating at industrial scale, and delivering capabilities that match real operational needs," said Ben Wallace, portfolio manager at Merlyn Advisors and former UK Defence Secretary.
Tekever is not the only player. A wave of large funding has also flowed to Germany's Helsing and Quantum Systems, which raised USD 1.8 billion and EUR 1 billion respectively in July. The UK's Cambridge Aerospace secured USD 300 million in August, while Stark, a German AI-based unmanned systems startup, pocketed EUR 500 million in June. This pattern signals a shift in the defense industry landscape: technology startups are now reckoned on par with traditional contractors.
For Indonesia, this phenomenon holds strategic lessons. The national defense budget continues to rise, and the need for maritime and aerial surveillance systems is increasingly urgent. However, the domestic defense startup ecosystem still lags far behind. Partnerships between universities, global investment funds, and defense ministries such as those pursued by Tekever could serve as a blueprint for building military technology self-reliance without depending entirely on imports.
The question is, will Indonesia take lessons from Europe's defense investment surge, or remain a market for foreign products while local talent struggles to obtain capital and access to government contracts?
