Undisclosed · Other round · Defence, Hardware · Kyiv, Ukraine
Kyiv-based M-FLY has secured an undisclosed new financing round led by existing investor MITS Capital. Freedom Fund returned, while Norwegian defence-focused investor Gardar and an unnamed investor joined. The company says the capital will expand production facilities and shorten product-development cycles as demand grows from Ukrainian customers and buyers in NATO countries.
M-FLY builds the sensing hardware that keeps cameras stable and aimed while an unmanned platform is moving. Its portfolio includes gyro-stabilised gimbals for aerial, maritime and ground systems, plus laser range-finding and target-designation products. The company says its stabilisation platform has been tested in combat conditions at speeds of up to 350 km/h. A lighter RB-100 gimbal for small drones is planned for the first quarter of 2027.
A component supplier, not a drone prime
The commercial problem is unusually concrete. A reconnaissance drone can be inexpensive, but the optical payload that turns it into a useful observation platform may account for roughly a third of the system's cost. M-FLY founder and CEO Vladyslav Myhovych told Defence Blog that some imported gimbals cost several times more than the aircraft carrying them. M-FLY's answer is to manufacture much of the stack itself, including motors, lenses, cameras and software. The company says that keeps pricing close to Chinese alternatives while limiting Chinese components to less than 6% of each unit.
That vertical integration matters for more than price. M-FLY says it moved image processing onto a graphics-processing platform that lets engineers substitute chips and memory components when supplies tighten. For buyers operating through rapid battlefield iteration and constrained supply chains, the ability to adapt a component without redesigning the whole payload can be as valuable as headline performance.
The company was founded in late 2023 from a volunteer project supplying Ukraine's military and later joined the MITS accelerator. Before this round, it had raised $1.4m through friends-and-family capital, Brave1 grants and venture backing. M-FLY says it doubled its team and increased revenue severalfold over the past 12 months. Its next test is operational: convert rising demand and international interest into repeatable production while maintaining the cost and component-independence advantages it claims.
Explore this theme
The Ukrainian defence technology market — Kyiv School of Economics Institute, research report · March 2026. The report explains how private capital, accelerators and state grants are combining to finance the country's defence suppliers.
Sources checked:
MITS Capital · Defence Blog · M-FLY · M-FLY LinkedIn · Tech.eu Funding Explorer
