Hard Cat Drones

Hard Cat Drones is a Ukrainian defence-tech startup, founded in 2023 and based in Kyiv, that builds lightweight unmanned boats for reconnaissance, mine clearance and strikes on small enemy vessels. Its flagship is the Black Widow 2, a high-speed river drone its developers sum up as “FPV, but on water.” The craft measures about one metre, weighs roughly eight kilograms, runs to around 40 km/h with a range near ten kilometres and carries a payload of about three kilograms. A camera on a swivelling mount gives it day-and-night observation, while its battery lets it loiter for several hours or sit in standby for days. At roughly $2,700 a unit, the company says it can turn out as many as 100 a month.

The platform grew out of a specific need: countering Russian troop rotations between islands in the Dnipro River delta, where small boats move under cover of night and conventional firepower struggles to reach them. The Black Widow 2 first appeared publicly in October 2024 at the Defense Tech Valley summit and has since entered trials with two brigades of Ukraine’s armed forces. Alongside it, Hard Cat describes a kamikaze river drone for sinking small craft or anchored mines, and a variant able to scan the riverbed, flag enemy mines and guide friendly boats through contested water. A dedicated mine-clearing model and a larger river drone are on its roadmap.

The company keeps its founders unnamed, citing security. In a round finalised in early 2025, it raised pre-seed funding from Double Tap Investments, a British–Finnish fund that backs Ukrainian defence startups; the amount was not disclosed. Hard Cat’s work sits among a new wave of Ukrainian river-drone makers alongside NoviTechNet and Crocus Manufacture , and complements the country’s larger naval programmes Magura and Sea Baby.