USD 2.5M for HIMERA’s New Nervous System of Modern Warfare

• Emerged from frontline needs, Ukrainian HIMERA delivers resilient, EW-resistant tactical communications
• The company evolved from radios into interoperable infrastructure connecting soldiers, drones, and battlefield systems
• With newly raised USD 2.5M, HIMERA will scale R&D, expand globally, and strengthen its position in the secure communications markets

Last December, HIMERA—the Ukrainian defense tech startup specializing in tactical communication—secured USD 2.5M of Seed investment. The round was led by Green Flag Ventures, joined by an entire constellation of investors: VYTACH, Varangians (invested in NORDA Dynamics recently), United Angels Network (co-invested in NORDA Dynamics), UA1 VC, Nezlamni Fund, Freedom Fund VC, and several business angels.

Deep Tech Meets Operational Leadership

HIMERA’s founding team combines in-depth expertise and many years of experience in various industries. Co-founder and CEO Misha Rudominsky who is responsible for business development and operations. He can boast about significant experience as a manager, co-founder, and board member in a handful of deep-tech and aerospace projects. Meanwhile, the startup’s CTO has over 20 years of experience in hardware R&D, specializing in wireless technologies, embedded systems, microprocessors, and audio signal processing. 

The two co-founders have known each other since 2015. They met at the Kyiv Polytechnic Institute’s startup school where they were each working on his own project: a security system for cars and motorcycles and a Bluetooth tracker for smartphones.

From Frontline Need to Company Formation: First Hardware, First Combat Feedback

Like many Ukrainian defense tech and dual-use founders, they started HIMERA in 2022 in response to the needs of the front. One of them volunteered for the Kyiv region’s counterterrorist unit where he personally experienced a critical shortage of reliable tactical communications. It was then that the idea took shape to create a communication system that would be both difficult to detect, resistant to electronic warfare, easy to use, and possible to mass-produce.

‘Within a few months, this idea gave rise to a team, and the team came up with a product,’ the co-founders tell ITKeyMedia.

In 2023, HIMERA G1 was introduced — the first radio station developed by the team. It went directly to aid the combat units of the Defense Forces of Ukraine, and the feedback from the frontline provided the foundation for further improvements: from protection against interception to ergonomics of use in combat.

In 2024, HIMERA introduced the G1 PRO — a new radio model developed based on frontline experience. In the same year, first deliveries to the US market were made, opening international cooperation.

In 2025, HIMERA successfully fulfilled its first state order for the Ministry of Defense of a European country, a NATO member. The company also launched HIMERA B1 — a repeater that expands coverage and allows for building stable MANETs. The same year, a combat case took place with the Khartiya brigade of the National Guard of Ukraine, involving the procurement of stable communication in challenged terrain, drone delivery of autonomous repeaters, and as long as three weeks of operation without recharging.

The team admits that they expected technical challenges, but the most unexpected barrier turned out to be institutional bureaucracy. They found out that regulatory and procurement mechanisms in the military often lag behind the real needs of units. As it turned out, simplified procedures and pilot tools are mainly applied to drones and electronic warfare, while communications are left out. As a result, critical solutions often get implemented more slowly than the situation on the battlefield demands.

Essentially, HIMERA’s solutions present rugged tactical communications systems that allow soldiers exchange voice and data securely in contested, real-world battlefields. Its stack is designed to unify disparate radios, situational awareness feeds, drones, and robotic systems into a more coherent, resilient communications fabric. This means field-deployable hardware and software that helps units talk, share sensor data, and coordinate in environments where standard commercial or legacy military networks fail.

Data, Ethics, and Control with a Worst-Case Future War in Mind

Seeing how such interoperability inevitably creates powerful data exhaust, questions arise such as: Who should be allowed to use that data for learning? Are there any hard ethical or operational red lines? HIMERA’s co-founders strongly believe that the data generated by interoperable systems should be as secure as possible and remain under the control of the military. I should be solely up to them to determine who can use this data and to what extent. The team insists on their fundamental position of avoiding the collection and use of operational data without the consent of users. In developing solutions, HIMERA relies only on the information that the military is willing to share voluntarily, including depersonalized responses and feedback that do not pose any security risks.

‘We make the assumption in the HIMERA architecture that a large-scale, protracted and high-tech conflict of the Third World War level will occur. This means an environment with constant interference, electronic warfare, lack of stable infrastructure, rapid change of tactics and the need for autonomous operation. Therefore, the system is designed to be as resilient, decentralized and capable of operating in conditions where classic approaches to communication no longer work,’ Mr Rudominsky shares.

HIMERA implies a shared ‘nervous system’ for future warfare that should be created and made available to the defense forces. The co-founders’ firm conviction is that its direct control should be the responsibility of the operator.

Strategic Importance and Investor Confidence

As Ukraine’s Minister of Digital Transformation Mykhailo Fedorov noted, secure communications are the foundation of battlefield management, and the new funding allows HIMERA to develop its tech further and strengthen its position in both the Ukrainian and international defense communications market.

‘HIMERA addresses one of the most critical challenges of modern warfare: secure and resilient battlefield communications under intense electronic warfare conditions. We have followed the team for a long time and love their ambition, how they work and how they create results. The company’s developments are crucial not only for Ukraine’s Armed Forces, but also for rearming Europe with modern, smart, and cost-efficient solutions,’ Varangians’ co-founder and CEO Pär Lager agrees.

To Scale in Ukraine and Abroad

According to HIMERA’s CEO, the company plans to use the newly raised funds to develop its tech further and strengthen its position in the Ukrainian and international secure communications market. In Ukraine, this means accelerating R&D, expanding coverage, and increasing the stability and security of communications for combat units that operate in difficult conditions every day. At the same time, the company intends to scale its international presence. Following successful contracts in both the EU and the USA, the new investment allows HIMERA to expand current projects and enter new markets where secure communications with a low chance of interception are critically important.

‘We invest in technologies that have already proven their effectiveness on the battlefield. HIMERA’s communication ecosystem — engineered to resist jamming, interception, and disruption — exemplifies the kind of real-world innovation that will define next-generation emergency response and defence capabilities. At the same time, it directly addresses modern warfare demand for more affordable, attritable systems that require significantly less training for end users without compromising operational effectiveness and security,’ UA1 VC’s co-founding partner William McNulty states.

‘Our investment reflects our continued confidence in HIMERA for the long term and recognises the progress they have made as a standalone product, and with their ongoing work for integration into other platforms in the ecosystem,’ Green Flag Ventures’ founding partner Deborah Fairlamb adds.

HIMERA’s trajectory underscores how battlefield-driven innovation can translate into lasting military resilience for Ukraine, strengthening command, coordination, and survivability under the most contested conditions. By building secure, interoperable communications systems that work where legacy solutions fail, the company is helping lay the technological backbone for a more adaptive and autonomous defense force. At the same time, HIMERA’s growing international adoption reinforces Ukraine’s reputation not only as a consumer of defense technologies, but as a credible global source of next-gen defense innovation forged under real combat pressure.