U.S. startups have spent billions of venture-capital dollars in hopes of developing the small drones that the Pentagon says it needs for future conflicts, but many have produced only expensive aircraft that don’t fly very well. Ukrainian drone makers, meanwhile, have mastered mass-producing drones despite limited resources and are looking for new customers and capital…

“No U.S. company is keeping up with Ukraine,” said CX2 co-founder Nathan Mintz. “You know their stuff works. They’ve got the ultimate high-stakes laboratory meant to battle-proof all this stuff.”

The U.S. has the capacity to build up to 100,000 drones a year, according to one Defense Department estimate. In 2024, Ukraine built more than two million drones. Some of the Ukraine-built drones that the Defense Department wants can fly hundreds of miles with explosives and have been used in attacks inside Russia…“Ukraine has made it pretty clear that they intend on being the drone capital of the planet once this war is over,” said Derek Whitley, co-founder of startup Vivum, which sells its AI software for autonomous systems to the Defense Department.

Ukrainian drones often sell for one-tenth the price of American options. They have proven on the battlefield that they can work when radio and satellite communication is blocked by electronic jamming…American startups are slower to build, deliver and update their drones, which also have often failed to weather severe electronic warfare. Many U.S. companies that brought their drones to Ukraine watched them fall out of the sky or fail to complete missions.

Excerpt from Heather Somerville, America Turns to Ukraine to Build Better Drones, WSJ, Mar. 11, 2025