UKRAINE FOR INVESTORS · PART I · FREE
Is Ukraine a market, or a headline.
Sooner or later a founder in your portfolio will ask to go, or will come back holding a Ukrainian letter of intent and expect you to know what it is worth. This is the talk they are hearing — three parts on war, Ukraine, and the future of defense, given privately in San Francisco to a room of defense-technology founders.
- Part I is free and plays the moment you sign up.
- From the company that has closed $58MM for fifteen defense companies working through Ukrainian frontline units.
- No pitch inside it, and nothing here is investment advice. The talk is the talk.
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Watch the talk
THE DILIGENCE QUESTIONS
Four things you are right to be sceptical about
These are the objections investors raise, answered from fifteen engagements rather than from a market map. Two of them are largely correct — the useful part is knowing why they still do not settle the question.
“There is no money in Ukraine.”
Largely true, and the wrong metric. Ukraine is a proof line, not a revenue line — the money arrives afterwards, through allied procurement, once the product has been validated somewhere a NATO buyer believes. A company that goes in trying to charge American prices gets found out immediately, and a company that treats a Ukrainian contract as its revenue thesis is misreading the play.
“A Ukrainian LOI is not real demand.”
It is closer to real demand than most things in defense. It is written by the unit that will operate the system, after they have tested it, in a war they are losing people in. One client turned a $2MM letter of intent into a place at Y Combinator. The diligence skill is reading which ones are unit-authored and which came from a trade-show handshake — that distinction is in Part II.
“The risk is not worth it.”
Founders hear that sentence from their investors, and it appears in the talk almost verbatim. Price the other side of it: a validation cycle costs a few flights and a quarter of an engineer, while the alternative is a portfolio company presenting a system to allied buyers that has never met peer electronic warfare — against competitors whose systems have.
“It is not the war we will fight.”
Everyone you might fight is learning there. Iran supplies and operates Shahed drones. North Korea trains inside Russia. China pulls data from every mission it can reach. Whatever counter-UAS or autonomy thesis you are underwriting is being counter-engineered in real time, and the counter-engineering is public.
WHO IS SAYING IT
ALL SIX RESULTS →US-government-funded letter of request, with a €100MM+ German follow-on in development.
Submitted letters of request for an acoustic sensor company, built on frontline demand.
Raised by an air-defense interceptor company on the back of frontline letters of intent.
The Borderlands Group, founded in Kyiv on day two of the full-scale invasion. Clients are anonymised by category — we do not name companies operating in an active war. Outcomes vary by product, performance and demand; no specific outcome is guaranteed.
PART I · FREE
Why War Matters
Why war is not an aberration but a permanent feature of how power works — and what that means for anyone building in defense.
- The power law of war, and why smaller forces beat larger ones
- Energy, economics, and how nations actually pay for wars
- The Last Supper of 1993: how 51 defense primes became five
- Man versus machine, and why there is still a human in the loop
- Clausewitz, the trinity, and the nine principles
- The defense reading list
AFTER YOU WATCH
Part III is the thesis
Part II is the operating reality — how money actually moves, and the ten rules that separate the companies that compound from the ones that burn a year. Part III is the part you can actually underwrite against: who the customer is in ten years.
Why Ukraine Matters
Every reason founders are given for not going, answered — and the ten rules that separate the companies that succeed from the ones that burn money.
- “There is no money in Ukraine” and what is actually true
- The corruption objection, answered from fifteen engagements
- Why everyone you might fight is already learning there
Winning the Future
Private military companies, the return of a four-hundred-year-old security model, and who your customer will be in ten years.
- Columbus, the Dutch East India Company, and privatised force
- Why PMCs are returning, and why Ukraine will export them
- Sea power against land power: the shape of the next fight
THE SPEAKER
Samuel P.N. Cook
Graduated West Point in 2000 and served as a US Army Cavalry officer — Regimental Adjutant under H.R. McMaster at Tal Afar, then troop command during the Surge in Iraq. After two tours, the Army selected him to earn his M.A. in World History at NYU, and he taught Russian History at West Point for three years.
He has lived in Kyiv for nine years. On day two of the full-scale invasion he founded The Borderlands Group, and has spent every day since helping defense companies enter Ukraine — building deep relationships across the Ministry of Defense, the General Staff, NATO, and operating units.
He has seen first-hand which companies get Ukraine right, which get it wrong, and why. This talk is what he tells them.
He is not raising and has nothing to sell you here. He travelled thirty-six hours to give this talk once, to one room — a train out of Ukraine, then a flight to California. This is that recording.
FREQUENTLY ASKED
Before you sign up
Is a Ukrainian letter of intent real demand?
More often than not, yes — it is written by the frontline unit that will operate the system, after they have tested it in combat conditions. One Borderlands client turned a $2MM letter of intent into a place at Y Combinator. The diligence skill is distinguishing a unit-authored LOI from a trade-show handshake, which the talk covers in Part II.
Is there money to be made in Ukraine itself?
Rarely, and that is the wrong metric. Ukraine is a proof line rather than a revenue line: companies validate there and earn revenue afterwards through allied procurement, once the product is credible to NATO buyers. A company treating Ukrainian contracts as its revenue thesis is misreading the opportunity.
What does a validation cycle cost a portfolio company?
Broadly a few flights and a quarter of an engineer’s time per iteration, and companies should expect several iterations, because almost nothing works the first time under real electronic warfare. That is the figure to weigh against presenting an unproven system to allied buyers whose other options have been combat-tested.
Is this investment advice?
No. The Borderlands Group is an advisory company serving defense and technology companies, not a licensed investment adviser, and nothing in the talk or on this page is a recommendation to buy or sell any security.
START HERE
Part I is free. It plays as soon as you sign up.
Then judge the market for yourself, on evidence rather than on the headline your LPs read this morning.
Watch my talk