Pavel Panasjuk was running cleantech startups when Russian missiles started hitting Ukraine in 2022. He had zero defencetech experience—his only military knowledge came from reading history books as a hobby. Like many Ukrainian entrepreneurs, he and his co-founder Oleksandr started by buying medkits, cars, ammunition, and bulletproof vests to supply friends in the army. But after a few months, they shifted from buying supplies to building something. So they made a crazy bet—instead of fixing today's problems, they'd design autonomous submarines for the war 15 years from now. They asked "what comes AFTER Ukraine's surface drones dominate the Black Sea?" Their answer: AI-powered mini-subs that make tactical decisions independently underwater.

In this episode, Pavel shares how thinking ahead of the current war became Angler's strategy: why he believes human navies are finished and 90% of naval warfare will be autonomous by 2035, how Ukrainian startups move at 6-month cycles while watching Western contractors plan decade-long programs for systems that'll be obsolete before they launch, why European VCs frustrated him by acting "more like bankers lending money" instead of betting on breakthrough technology like American investors do—and the two things Ukrainian defence founders understand that Western founders are completely blind to: speed and affordability, because when your relatives live near the front line, you don't have time for 10-year development cycles.

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Chapters:

00:00 Introduction

01:28 What Angler Actually Does

02:32 From CleanTech to DefenceTech

03:39 February 2022: The Decision to Build for War

04:42 Finding Your Technical Co-Founder

18:25 Customer Discovery: Who Actually Buys This

20:31 The Pivot: Why We Went Hybrid

21:49 First Prototypes: Garage to Water Testing

30:40 How to Actually Raise from European VCs

36:50 Building Fast vs Building Perfect

42:35 Where to Incorporate as Ukrainian Founder

52:27 Getting to Revenue Without 5-Year Timelines

53:41 How Much Tech to Show Investors

55:29 What Ukrainian Founders Know About Speed

55:47 The 6-Month Product Cycle Rule

56:15 The Unsexy Thing That Kill you Company

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You will learn:

- Why Pavel talked to military customers BEFORE building anything

- The "cheap, good enough" rule that Ukrainian founders understand but Western defence companies completely miss

- How Pavel found his first investor after cold emails failed

- Why most defence tech pitches fail at the secrecy/disclosure balance

- Why 90% of naval warfare will be autonomous within 10 years

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Follow Martin Majercin on X:https://www.x.com/monsfrost

Follow Martin Majercin on LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/monsfrost/

Follow Pavel Panasjuk LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/ppanasjuk

Follow Angler on their website:https://anglerdrones.com

#defence #drone #maritime #defencetechnology #startup #ukraine

Francesco Cacciatore, a space engineer who spent 20 years designing missions to Mars, Mercury, and comets at companies like Deimos and Sener, co-founded Orbital Paradigm in 2023. When most thought reentry was a closed market dominated by established players, his team did the unthinkable: they built Spain's first reentry capsule in 11 months—working nights and weekends while still employed—and got it flight-qualified. Today, Orbital Paradigm is the only payload that survived the catastrophic PSLV failure in January 2025, with their capsule enduring 35Gs (more than double design limits) and transmitting data all the way down.

In this episode, Francesco shares the unfiltered journey of building Europe's newest reentry company: how a personal health crisis made him stop "watching life from the bench" and finally start something, how they qualified flight hardware faster than anyone expected by over-engineering for the wrong mission profile, and why European founders need to stop chasing manager titles and feeling guilty about wanting to get rich.

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Chapters:

00:00 Introduction

01:40 What Orbital Paradigm Actually Does

28:05 The Health Crisis That Pushed Me to Quit

35:02 Why MBAs Are Useless for Space Founders

45:39 First Weeks: Building While Working Full-Time

50:50 The Pivot: From In-Space Robotics to Reentry Capsules

01:09:24 Build vs Buy: Being Cleverly Integrated

01:14:16 Finding Your First Customers: Pulling the Thread

01:19:35 Fundraising Mistakes: Stop Leading with Step One

01:28:24 Launch Day: When the Rocket Failed Mid-Flight

01:33:20 How KID Survived 33Gs (When It Should Have Died)

01:44:16 The Biggest Lie Investors Tell Founders

01:48:03 Final Message: Why It's Worth It

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You will learn:

- What's the biggest mistake engineers make with investors and how to fix it

- Why European founders need to stop chasing titles

- Why to design for customers, not capabilities

- Why "vertical integration" myth is bullsh*t

- What kills most of the deep tech companies

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Follow Martin Majercin on X:https://www.x.com/monsfrost

Follow Martin Majercin on LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/monsfrost/

Follow Francesco Cacciatore LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/francescocacciatore/

Follow Orbital Paradigm on LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/company/orbital-paradigm

Christian Schmierer, an aerospace engineer who grew up next to Europe's largest rocket test center, co-founded HyImpulse in 2018. When every expert dismissed hybrid rockets as failed technology from the 1960s, his team did the unthinkable: they built rockets powered by paraffin—essentially candle wax.

Today, HyImpulse has raised over €45 million and became Germany's first privately-funded company to successfully launch a rocket—spending just €15 million to get there while competitors burned through ten times that amount.

In this episode, Christian shares the unfiltered journey of building Europe's most unconventional launch company: how breaking world records as students made founding a company feel inevitable, why four engineers leaving stable jobs at the German Aerospace Center (DLR) turned out to be the right choice and why they had to ship their rocket halfway around the world to the Australian desert for a mission aptly named "Light This Candle.

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Chapters:

(00:00) Introduction

(02:50) From Childhood Curiosity to Student Rocket Team

(09:55) Why Hybrid Rockets? The Technology No One Believed In

(14:32) Failure at 2 Kilometers: Our First Launch Attempt

(22:49) Breaking the World Record: 32.3 Kilometers

(24:04) The 16-Month Gap: From Students to Founders

(31:23) How We Landed Our First Investor

(35:37) Scaling from 4 Founders to 50 People

(42:33) Cracking the Code: Winning EU Funding on the Third Try

(48:25) Light This Candle: Germany's First Private Rocket Launch

(51:21) How One Launch Changed Everything with Investors

(53:05) Raising €45M and Planning the Orbital Rocket

(58:21) The 10-Year Vision

(01:05:03) Advice to Space Founders

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Takeaways:

1) Just get started - Europe rewards those who try: "If you have a great idea then there is definitely room in Europe to do this and follow your dream or your idea and you just have to get started because initially there will be people who say it's impossible or no one needs it."

2) Learn to speak different languages to different stakeholders: "The way how I explain it to a potential investor is completely different whether it's a VC or a strategic, but then if I have to explain it to an authority it's again completely different - I have to use a different language that they understand." Your pitch to a VC, a government agency, and a customer should sound completely different.

3) Capital efficiency is a competitive advantage, not a limitation: HyImpulse launched their first rocket for just €15 million total. "We are actually very capital efficient but of course if you want to build amazing things, big things, then it also requires capital." Being scrappy forces you to make smarter decisions.

4) Start where you have the edge, not where VCs tell you to start: While other rocket startups bought hired experienced engineers, HyImpulse started with basic research on hybrid rockets with paraffin. "We had to start with basic research whereas everyone else, if they wanted, they could have bought an engine."

5) Resilience built in student days becomes the foundation for your company: As students, their first rocket failed at just 2 kilometers after years of work. They built two more rockets and broke the world record at 32.3 kilometers on their third attempt. That "fail, learn, try again" DNA carried directly into HyImpulse - where the stakes were exponentially higher but the resilience was already battle-tested.

6) A successful launch changes everything - but only for non-engineers: "For us as rocket engineers, already in the testing phase on ground it was clear okay this will work at some point. But for non-engineers this is a different story. I can explain to people as many times 'yeah with candle wax, with paraffin you can launch into space' and people say 'yeah okay.' But with that launch, that of course changed - people say 'oh it looks like a real rocket!'"