HIMERA develops affordable, low-detectability combat radios that provide front-line troops with secure, frequency-hopping encrypted communications. The company has recently gained traction in the US, with the US Air Force acquiring a batch of its products for capability testing.
To date, HIMERA has raised over $1.9M from investors including Green Flag Ventures, United Angels Network, Freedom Fund Ventures, Big Defence, and others. We interviewed Misha Rudominski, CEO and Co‑Founder of HIMERA, about how the company is transforming battlefield communications with affordable, secure, and scalable radio systems.
The War in Ukraine Has Become a Real‑Time Laboratory for Tactical Communications. From Your Vantage Point, Where Is the Industry Headed?
At HIMERA, we launched in early 2022 precisely because Ukrainian units were struggling with radios that cost $10‑20k a piece yet still failed against Russian electronic warfare.
What we have learned since then is that the same pain points exist everywhere—even inside the well‑funded U.S. Army. Many ground forces still rely on outdated analog or commercial digital radios. The gear is expensive, the business models are stuck in the “license everything” era, and innovation stalls under de facto monopolies.
Our approach was to start with the actual users—friends and family on the front line—rather than procurement bureaucracies. We built HIMERA G1 and now G1 PRO out of commercial off-the-shelf components, added frequency-hopping, mesh networking, and end-to-end encryption, and priced it for mass issue.
Today, more than 7,000 Ukrainian soldiers—from infantry to special operations, artillery, marines, and border guards—use our radios in the most hostile EW environment on the planet. That user‑first mindset, combined with a modern hardware startup culture, shows the industry can deliver truly scalable, combat‑proven comms at a fraction of the historic cost.
Western Forces Invest Heavily in Equipping Elite Units With Sophisticated Radios, While Regular Infantry Are Often Left With Commercial Sets. How Do You Solve This Problem?
The key is scale. When only a few thousand top-of-the-line tactical handsets are present in the environment, their unique RF “fingerprint” becomes a beacon for enemy sensors: if you spot a Harris waveform, you have just found a high‑value target. Instead of exclusive high‑end systems, we aim at flooding the battlefield with tens of thousands of affordable, frequency‑hopping, self‑healing nodes. That makes advanced waveforms the norm, not the exception, and removes the “shoot‑here” cue.
Redundancy is equally vital. Teams blend our mesh radios with satellite backhaul, wired links where possible, and even LTE a few kilometers from the line. Purely commercial tech near the frontline is risky—it is loud on the spectrum and easy to geolocate. That’s why we take commercial components and integrate them into military-grade radio systems with secure RF and rugged physical design. The goal is not “cheap & disposable”; it is “good enough to survive EW, affordable enough to field at brigade scale.”
Are You Looking for Additional Funding—Perhaps From European VCs—And Do You Foresee Applications Beyond Defense?
We are currently raising our seed round to accelerate R&D, global sales, and manufacturing. We are absolutely interested in partners who share democratic values and understand the strategic importance of resilient comms—Europe is high on that list. Longer‑term, rugged, secure mesh radios have clear spillover into disaster response, border security, and critical infrastructure protection, but our immediate focus remains on supporting Ukraine and allied militaries.
Ultimately, we aim to build a world where every soldier—not just the most elite—can rely on secure, resilient communications, where innovation and scale surpass legacy monopolies.
Few European Founders Are Considering America Early On. You’re Already Selling There—Why?
Because there are buyers. If you have a field‑ready product, U.S. units will pilot and purchase. The market filters out grant‑dependent “zombie” startups; you must ship hardware soldiers can use tomorrow. That discipline is healthy.
Where Can Europe Move the Needle Fastest in Defense Tech?
Two reforms would be needed: ring‑fence 5 % of defense budgets for purchasing from companies under ten years old—actual orders, not grants. Stop funding zombie firms living on endless subsidies with no product in service. Competition, not comfort, drives capability.