A five-day Extreme Bootcamp program for defense tech startups will be held in Ukraine soon. Three best teams will share the €1 million prize fund, and the winner will receive €500,000 in prize capital.
Startups can apply until June 7 via this link. According to the website of the organizers of the Darkstar project, they are looking for ten teams that have already had combat tests of products on the Ukrainian frontline or will have them there within six months.
We will help these teams grow, scale and accelerate their progress,
the organizers say.
In the questionnaire, the startups are asked to tell more about their offer, as well as to indicate how exactly this program can help it. The organizer promise that the teams will work together with some of the best European unicorn founders at the camp.
What is known about the organizers of Extreme Bootcamp
Darkstar is a coalition of over 20 founders, hackers and investors from Estonia, Ukraine, Germany, France, and the UK. The coalition says they all share one goal: the development of an ecosystem of European defense technologies.
Estonian entrepreneur Ragnar Sass act as the co-organizer of the bootcamp. He told DOU that all partners share common values, and assured that they had not raised any Russian money and help the Ukrainian army.
It was very easy for us to get consent from Estonian entrepreneurs, because in Estonia Russians constantly jam GPS signals. For us, victory over them is also a matter of national security,
he said.
The organizers are looking for not only Ukrainian startups, but also European ones that could cooperate with Ukrainians and be useful on the battlefield. Ukrainian companies can also be helped to open a representative office in Estonia.
Priority is given to everything related to electronics and software, and which can be easily scaled. According to Sass, it is not necessary to have a product already in production, demo versions are also suitable.
