Occam Industries, a London-based DefenceTech startup with a focus on autonomous drone operations, has raised a €3 million (£2.6 million) pre-Seed round. It has also completed assessment as fit for integration testing by the Ukrainian DefenceTech cluster Brave1.
The round was led by Presto Tech Horizons, a resilience-focused VC fund backed by defence-industrial partner CSG (Czechoslovak Group). The pre-Seed round also included an international consortium of investors, with participation from Antler, US-based Freedom Fund, and Copenhagen-based dual-use investor TYR.vc, and a group of defence and security industry angels. The funding will support continued deployment and product development.
“Ukraine is not a pilot or test market. It’s the most demanding operating environment for autonomous systems anywhere in the world right now. Every assumption is tested under pressure: latency, reliability, operator load, decision-making. What we build at Occam is shaped by that reality and then honed in combat conditions. Fundamentally, if a system cannot perform at the zero-line, we cannot trust troops or security to it, and it has no place in modern defence,” said Gui Wainwright, co-founder and CEO of Occam.
Founded in 2025, Occam is a London-based technology firm specialising in integrating advanced software into existing, mass-manufactured drone and UAV platforms. It is the developer of OccamX, a retrofit computer vision-enabled autopilot designed specifically for FPV drones. The company claims that this unlocks expanded capabilities without the need to alter airframes, supply chains, or OEM ownership.
The company uses computer vision for perception, tracking, and guidance to reduce the requirement for continuous manual control and lower the barrier for operator skill.
According to Occam, automating the front line has been the dream of Ukraine since the rise of drone warfare. However, despite the widespread availability of low-cost drones, most deployments still rely on continuous human control, creating a scalability bottleneck that the UK startup claims to remove with software-only autonomy.
It notes that human pilot-dependent platforms can now be launched as fast as they leave production lines, and are independent from outside communication or GPS. This makes them resistant to signal interference and jamming.
“In 2025, approximately 54,700 drone attacks were recorded in Ukraine, compared with about 11,000 in 2024. Drones accounted for roughly 96% of all aerial weapons deployed – up from around 30% at the start of the air war in 2022 – illustrating how unmanned systems now dominate modern kinetic operations,” the company mentioned in the press release.
The company reports that Ukraine’s national defence platform Brave1 is now pursuing collaboration between Occam and select Ukrainian manufacturers to bring their technology to the Ukrainian market.
The field tests, conducted in late January via the TEST in Ukraine platform, have opened the door for wider adoption of automation in the defence sector, claims Occam.
The company’s next stage involves a Proof of Concept based on a Ukrainian unmanned platform, adapted to complex weather and combat conditions. Successful trials will enable scaling of its solution and deploying it with the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
“The future of defence technologies is being shaped and tested in Ukraine today. Brave1 has created a platform where international partners can trial their solutions, exchange expertise, and work with us to address emerging security challenges. AI is one of our key priorities, as it is fundamentally transforming the nature of combat operations. We highly value the fact that British technology companies like Occam are working directly with Ukraine to respond to real frontline needs – an experience that strengthens not only Ukraine, but Europe as a whole,” says Andrii Hrytseniuk, CEO at Brave1.
According to the company, the technology will undergo further validation after integration onto Ukrainian unmanned platforms, as a precursor to deployment. Beyond Ukraine, Occam states that it has strategic partnerships and collaborations underway with European defence primes looking to reinforce NATO capabilities.
The capital will be used by Occam to accelerate Ukrainian adoption across the entire front line as well as develop further support capabilities delivered via autonomous systems. Alongside this, it is starting paid adoption projects with European defence primes with deployments expected this year.
“This war will not be won not by the weight of numbers but by the power of creativity and innovation. Trusting good people to come up with good ideas, and creating good systems to apply them. Occam is a great example. It will confer asymmetric advantage in a fight that we simply must win,” noted Sir Alex Younger, former Director General of MI6, and advisor to Occam.
