If there is no finished product or defense contract, criticality status is not given. Drone developers and software teams in the early stages are virtually invisible to the state.
If there is no finished product or defense contract, criticality status is not given. Drone developers and software teams in the early stages are virtually invisible to the state.
Ukrainian defense tech startups that develop solutions for the army but do not yet have a finished product or a signed defense contract are falling out of the reservation system. The Executive Director of the Ukrainian Council of Arms Manufacturers, Ihor Fedirko, admitted this bluntly: there are no accurate statistics on such companies, and the problem remains systematically unresolved.
The Ukrainian defense technology market reached about $6.8 billion in 2025. But a certain part of its players is outside of any accounting. This is especially acutely felt by software companies and early-stage startups that do not fit into the formal criteria for obtaining criticality status — and therefore cannot reserve their employees.
«They can make an important product for the military, but formally do not meet the criteria that allow them to obtain criticality status. This is a difficult issue for the entire tech ecosystem, and it has still not been systematically resolved,» Fedirko said in a comment to Channel 24.
Criticality status is tied to fulfilling defense contracts and meeting clearly defined criteria—and is not automatic, even for companies that work directly for the military. The Brave1 platform supported over 600 companies in 2025—but this number does not reflect the real number of startups without a product and without status that remain invisible to the system.
No one actually counts a separate section of pre-product teams and software companies without contracts. The market, says Fedirko, is traditionally measured by production, contracts, investments, and the level of technological readiness — not by the stage of development or the real impact on defense capability.
