A record raise for a Ukrainian-founded firm

UForce, a London-based naval drone maker founded by Ukrainians, is now valued at £4.5bn after a funding round of more than £500m, with the UK government among the backers. The UK's national wealth fund contributed £113m, and the round was led alongside Valor Equity Partners, the private equity firm founded by former Tesla director Antonio Gracias. The deal makes UForce one of the UK's fastest-growing unicorns - startups valued at more than $1bn.

• •The national wealth fund put in £113m of the more than £500m raised
• •Valor Equity Partners was the other lead investor
• •Retired US general Christopher Cavoli, Nato's supreme allied commander for Europe until last year, is a Valor partner and joins the UForce board
• •Former Conservative defence secretary Ben Wallace also sits on the board

Drones proven in Ukraine's war

The company builds military drones for land, air and sea, and its drones have been used extensively in the war in Ukraine. Founder Oleg Rogynskyy grew up in Dnipro, an industrial city in eastern Ukraine, before founding People.ai, a Silicon Valley unicorn focused on sales and operations performance data.

Streeting meets Rogynskyy in Oslo

Defence secretary Wes Streeting met Rogynskyy on Thursday onboard HMS Prince of Wales during a defence conference in Oslo, Norway. There, Streeting remotely piloted a UForce MV7 uncrewed vessel located more than 1,500 miles away in the Atlantic Ocean near Portugal.

The Ministry of Defence singled out UForce's maritime work, pointing to worries about what Russia is doing in the north Atlantic and North Sea. Moscow's warships and its "shadow fleet" stand accused of targeting underwater cables and pipelines through sabotage and spying, and the UK wants a fleet of sea-borne drones in the northern seas to track Russia's nuclear submarine fleet.

What the government says it gets

According to the MoD, UForce will invest in a British supply chain, with hulls, engines, electronics and fit-out sourced in the UK, and more than 70% of the content of each UK-built boat will come from British suppliers.

Streeting said: "Ukraine is rewriting the rules of warfare. In just a few years the UK has gone from training Ukraine to being trained by Ukraine." He added that bringing battle-tested expertise to the UK will create high-skilled jobs, spur innovation and strengthen war-fighting readiness and deterrence.

Rogynskyy said UForce aims to "make aggression unaffordable", adding that the investment would allow the company to scale production for Ukraine and its allies.