Daria Yaniieva, PhD, President of Defence Builder, spoke on the private sector panel at “Dispatch from Kyiv – Defense Sector Roundtable” in Washington, D.C., hosted by the U.S.-Ukraine Business Council (USUBC) in partnership with Business Executives for National Security (BENS) during AUSA week.
The roundtable took place on 15 October and mirrored “Dispatch from Washington”, the USUBC event held in Kyiv in September. Daria argued that the U.S. market needs partnerships with Ukrainian companies, and Ukrainian companies need more capital to scale.
She said that combat use proves a technology works, but it becomes an investment only when there is a company around it. For this reason, DB Accelerator teams work on IP, unit economics, export and fundraising from day one, alongside the military track.
Speaking about early-stage investment, Daria explained that Defence Builder Fund looks at the founders first, including how fast they drop what does not work. Then it looks at the trajectory: how a prototype becomes a production line.
On partnerships, Daria said that copying a Ukrainian drone as is will not take a company far in the U.S. market. American forces buy capability that fits their doctrine, and Ukrainian teams have to adapt their products to it.
She named a U.S. partner that already has access to procurement as one of the fastest and most effective ways to do this. Working through such a partner, a Ukrainian team adapts its product together with people who know the local doctrine.
The panel was moderated by Derek Berlin (Palisade Bergschrund) and featured Nick Iltsopoulos (Trident Group America), Brig. Gen. Andrii Kononenko (Embassy of Ukraine in the United States) and Anastasiia Mishkina (TechForce in UA).
On 19 October, Defence Builder hosted a workshop with DIU for Ukrainian defence tech companies, and DIU sessions are also part of Defence Builder Accelerator Batch 4.0. Applications close on 30 October 2026. The four-month programme starts in November and admits ten defence and dual-use teams with a prototype at TRL 4 or higher.
Programme details: defencebuilder.com/batch4
