Ivan Kaunov, Co-founder and CEO of Buntar Aerospace, will work with the teams of DB Accelerator Batch 4.0 as a 1:1 mentor. Buntar Aerospace is one of the companies that power the Defence Builder Ecosystem, alongside Sigma Software Group and Kyiv School of Economics.

Buntar was founded in August 2023 and in the past seven months has closed two rounds above $10M. In March 2026, the company raised $10.4M in a round led by Axon Enterprise (Nasdaq: AXON), followed by a $16M round led by Freedom Fund, which took its total funding to about $30M. Its Buntar-3 reconnaissance UAV and Buntar Copilot mission software are in daily use by units of the Defence Forces of Ukraine.

Two rounds of that size within one year is a result very few Ukrainian defence companies have, and it is the direction Batch 4.0 teams will be working toward by Demo Day. In his sessions, Kaunov will share how Buntar got there. 

On fundraising, he will explain how a conversation with a Nasdaq-listed strategic investor differs from one with a venture fund, what each of them wants to see at the prototype stage, and how to run both processes without one blocking the other.

On due diligence, Kaunov will walk the teams through what Buntar had to have in order before Axon came in, from corporate structure and IP to financial and operational data, and what founders should prepare while they still don't have a term sheet. 

On production, he will cover the move from hand-assembled units to series production while demand from units keeps growing: working with suppliers, quality control, and how to use the first money so that production doesn't become the bottleneck.

Applications for DB Accelerator Batch 4.0 are open defencebuilder.com/batch4-application-form  

Programme details are available at defencebuilder.com/batch4