UFORCE, the London-headquartered maker of Ukraine’s Magura sea drones, said on Thursday, November 12, that it has raised $700 million in a Series A round at a $6 billion valuation. Valor Equity Partners and the UK’s National Wealth Fund co-led the round. The British fund put in £113 million ($150 million), its largest defense investment to date, and the U.S.-Ukraine Reconstruction Investment Fund also took part. DroneXL reported on October 11 that UFORCE was seeking $500 million at about $5 billion.
Retired US Army General Christopher Cavoli, NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander Europe until July 2025 and now a partner at Valor, joins the UFORCE board. The same day, UK Defence Secretary Wes Streeting piloted a UFORCE MV7 from the aircraft carrier HMS Prince of Wales in Oslo while the boat sailed more than 1,500 miles (2,400 kilometers) away, near Portugal. Neither the British government’s announcement nor UFORCE’s names a UK factory or an order for boats.
UFORCE Is Valued at $6 Billion, Eight Months After Announcing $1 Billion
UFORCE came out of stealth on March 5 with a round led by Shield Capital and Lakestar. CNBC puts that round at $50 million and about $1 billion. Thursday’s is about 14 times the size and values UFORCE at $6 billion post-money, chief executive Oleg Rogynskyy told Tectonic Defense.
UFORCE’s release lists Menlo Ventures, Xantium and Hiro Capital as new investors and says Shield Capital, Ballistic Ventures, Lakestar and Squadra increased their stakes. The Guardian, which converted the figures to sterling, reported the round as more than £500 million at £4.5 billion.
The money goes to more production of Magura boats, Nemesis aerial drones, Liut ground robots and Predator gun turrets, and to factories spread across the US, Europe, Asia-Pacific and the Middle East, the company said. Rogynskyy told CNBC that bookings more than doubled over the past year and that UFORCE turned down offers at higher valuations. In the release he said the company and its investors are determined to “make aggression unaffordable.”
UFORCE combines nine Ukrainian defense companies under a British parent, according to Tectonic Defense, and it is a founding member of the EU-Ukraine Drone Alliance. Its best-known product is the Magura, the boat Ukraine says shot down two Russian Su-30 fighter jets in May 2025.
Britain’s £113 Million Comes With a 70% British Content Pledge and No Named Factory
More than 70% of the content of each UK-built MV-series boat will come from British suppliers, including hulls, engines, electronics and fit-out, the National Wealth Fund said. Its equity stake will pay for British production of the MV7, the larger MV11 and Nemesis systems for the UK, Ukraine and allies.
The fund is wholly owned by the UK Treasury. The government’s announcement promises “hundreds of high-skilled jobs” and apprenticeships, and says Britain will be a base for supplying allies in the Joint Expeditionary Force, with a focus on northern seas. It gives no job count, no site and no production figure, and it announces no purchase by the Royal Navy. UFORCE launched its first UK-developed MV7 off England’s south coast on August 5.
Streeting ran the demonstration during the Atlantic Future Forum, held aboard the carrier in Oslo. The UK, he said, “has gone from training Ukraine to being trained by Ukraine.” UFORCE’s spec page lists the MV7 at 25.6 feet (7.8 meters) long, with a top speed of about 39 knots (45 mph) and a range of about 800 nautical miles (920 miles, or 1,480 kilometers). Former UK defence secretary Sir Ben Wallace also sits on UFORCE’s board.
Valor, a US-Ukraine Fund and a Former NATO Commander Tie UFORCE to Washington
Valor Equity Partners, the round’s other lead, was founded by Antonio Gracias, a SpaceX board member and former Tesla director, The Guardian reported. Cavoli, who joined Valor in 2025, represents the firm on a UFORCE board chaired by Oleksiy Honcharuk, a former prime minister of Ukraine.
The U.S.-Ukraine Reconstruction Investment Fund, which UFORCE’s release describes as a joint US-Ukraine investment fund, will pay for staff and product development inside Ukraine, the company said. The fund’s statement came from Conor Coleman, head of investments at the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation, who called the deal the fund’s largest in emerging technology so far.
UFORCE keeps a hub in Washington, DC, alongside London and Kyiv, and says it recently partnered with ReconCraft to build Magura boats in the United States. American soldiers have already used them. The 7th Infantry Division launched aerial drones from MV7 boats during an exercise in Michigan this fall, as DroneXL noted when the US Army picked a Ukrainian drone to play the enemy in Germany. None of Thursday’s three announcements includes a US contract.
DroneXL’s Take
When Airlogix went looking for $100 million at a $2 billion valuation in October, I wrote that the money was going to the Ukrainian companies that could leave Ukraine. UFORCE’s round shows governments now make the same bet. A British state fund and a US-Ukraine government fund are shareholders in a company that says its boats helped destroy more than a dozen Russian warships, and the British one bought a supply chain before any Royal Navy order was announced. That order of events doesn’t bother me, because a factory with 70% local content is how you get a defense ministry to place the order later. But $6 billion is a price for a prime contractor, and UFORCE’s proven customer is still Ukraine. I’ll believe the valuation when the Royal Navy or US Special Operations Command signs for hulls.
Sources: UFORCE, UK Ministry of Defence, National Wealth Fund, The Guardian, CNBC, Tectonic Defense
DroneXL uses automated tools to support research and source retrieval. All reporting and editorial perspectives are by Haye Kesteloo. Read our editorial standards.
