riverside edit ragnar & colin pep studio 1

Darkstar is named after a 1970s science fiction film in which a crew has to talk a bomb out of exploding. Ragnar and his partners took a different lesson from it: Europe needs many small, smart ships to take out the threats it faces. Legally, Darkstar is a €25M pre-seed and seed defence fund that can invest in lethal technology. In practice it works like an ecosystem and a defence agency. It runs bootcamps in Ukraine, signs cooperation agreements with the Estonian Army’s Transformation Command, and its four GPs act as co-founders to the companies they back. Nine investments in, it’s halfway through its first fund. In this episode, Colin Brown and Ragnar talk about: 🔹 Why Darkstar invests in lethal technology, not just dual use 🔹 Why every defence product needs testing in Ukraine 🔹 Farsight Vision: AI on real combat video and the automated kill chain 🔹 A team that spent 16 months rebuilding its product when GPS stopped working 🔹 Stratis: an Icelandic data platform born on a 30-hour drive to Kyiv 🔹 The test every investment has to pass: “Would I join this company as a co-founder?” 🔹 Plans for fund two, and why defence needs more capital at every stage 🔹 The free Darkstar bootcamp in Ukraine, and who should apply 🔹 Why Eric Schmidt deserves a shout-out Chapters 00:00 Why Darkstar? The 1970s film behind the name 02:05 More than a defence fund 04:06 Fund size, stage and investing in lethal 05:30 Why you have to test in Ukraine 08:15 Farsight Vision 14:06 Would I join as a co-founder? 16:45 Surviving the loss of GPS 19:00 Stratis and the 30-hour drive to Kyiv 24:40 What’s next for Darkstar 30:26 The Ukraine bootcamp 35:05 A shout-out to Eric Schmidt 38:00 Wrap-up 🔗 Darkstar: https://darkstar.ee/dark