Darkstar, a project supporting defense-tech startups, has invested €600,000 in Farsight Vision, a Ukrainian-Estonian startup specializing in battlefield intelligence.
The last 2.5 years have fundamentally changed modern warfare. Drones have taken a prominent place on the battlefield, not only for combat operations but also for providing operational information about changes on the front lines. However, manually processing this vast amount of rapidly changing information requires thousands of specialists every day.
Farsight Vision has created an intelligence and situational awareness platform that effortlessly combines and stitches all this video footage into a “digital twin”. This solves many problems in mission planning (e.g., with unfamiliar terrain, logistics, weapons placement, etc.). It significantly reduces the time required to process this data from days to minutes, increasing the number of both available and successful missions.
“Rapid analysis of intelligence data is the most important element for making any successful military decision. The Farsight platform has already been battle-tested: it has helped the Ukrainian army achieve historic victories in the past few months,” says Darkstar co-founder Ragnar Sass. The platform has received positive feedback from the Ukrainian military.
About Darkstar
Darkstar is a coalition of 30+ startup founders (including several unicorns), hackers, and investors from Estonia, Germany, Great Britain, France, Finland, the Netherlands, the Czech Republic, and Ukraine, united by one goal: to build a European defense technology ecosystem. DarkStar has already partnered with Brave1, Heroes & Allies, representatives of military intelligence, and the Unmanned Systems Forces. Thanks to active work within the framework of Help99 Ukraine, more than 200 military units are in close communication with them, providing quick feedback on the use of the latest technologies and the results of their combat use. DarkStar especially values the ability of Ukrainian companies to quickly create products, develop, and conduct combat testing.
FarsightVision is a platform that allows drone pilots and users of footage to interact for analytics and situational awareness, using 3D models and orthoimages. The platform brings together operators whose interaction makes the digitalization of the area easy and understandable. FarsightVision technology compiles images and provides quick access to a Digital Twin, which can be used to explore surrounding areas, compare the landscape, and plan various types of construction, irrigation, delivery, and other activities.
Key Features and Benefits:
- Orthoimage and 3D Model: Useful for planning and controlling operational activities, quick familiarization with the area, understanding situational changes, point-to-point distance measurement, and construction of structures.
- Streamlined Data Processing: The average drone flight generates 150 to 450 images that require time-consuming review and processing. FarsightVision simplifies the process of obtaining orthophotos (aerial photos) by overlaying photos and eliminating unnecessary information.
- Future Developments: The platform aims to highlight changes over time by automatically showing differences between drone flights along similar routes. Eventually, it will be able to recognize any objects from a photo and create full-fledged navigation without GPS.
Darkstar’s investment in Farsight Vision underscores the growing importance of defense technology innovation, particularly in the context of the ongoing conflict in Ukraine. Farsight Vision’s platform has the potential to significantly enhance battlefield intelligence and situational awareness, ultimately contributing to more effective and successful military operations.
