Tekever: Shooting the lights out
Founded in Portugal way back in the dark ages of 2001, Tekever is a veteran in the world of drone warfare that is evolving at warp speed on the battlefields of Ukraine. Its valuation has rocketed since it first crossed the $1bn mark in May 2025, and its latest funding round, led by Baillie Gifford and the University of California’s endowment fund, raised $580m at a valuation of $6.4bn. Investment is pouring into the European defence tech sector, creating herds of unicorns as governments catch up on long-delayed military spending.
Tekever has moved its headquarters to the UK and won two major contracts from the UK’s ministry of defence. Project Corvus, worth up to £400m over 10 years, will use Tekever’s AR5 drones to replace its obsolete Watchkeeper drone fleet, while Project NYX will develop autonomous rotary platforms to operate alongside Apache attack helicopters. The company’s smaller AR3 drones have been used extensively to support operations in Ukraine, with over 50,000 flying hours in what it describes as contested environments.
Tekever’s drones are also employed in civilian applications, such as monitoring shipping in the English Channel, preventing and monitoring wildfires in Canada and watching out for pirates in the Gulf of Guinea. But it’s the military applications that are attracting the interest, with reports from the recent Defence 2027: Army, Technology, Industry conference in Kyiv underlining the critical role of co-operation between governments, militaries and the defence tech sector to maintain an edge in an environment where weapons and battlefield systems are changing every month.
McDonald’s: Not lovin’ it
It was not exactly the result the world’s largest burger chain was hoping for when it invited shareholders and analysts to Chicago for its first investor day in nearly three years. It lined up an A-list of suits, polished up its presentations and launched its NEXT strategy that it is hoping will drive a turnaround for the juggernaut in the years to 2030, and clearly the hope was that the plan would be greeted with thumbs up and strawberry milkshakes all round, instead of which the market smacked its share price by another 4.8%.
This takes the drop from its highs in March to around 29%, and it is clear that the market thinks something needs to be done to sharpen up its restaurants, improve customer service and give Big Mac devotees a reason to come back. One of its big bets is on chicken, with the goal of growing its share of the global fast-food chicken market by 1.5% by 2030. Chicken sales have been growing by 5% per year in the top 10 markets, as opposed to beef at 3% after the price of ground beef in the US has risen more than 50% since 2021.
Sales in the US were generally sluggish, and were not helped by the widespread use of GLP-1 weight-loss drugs, which don’t exactly encourage users to dash to the golden arches for a double quarter pounder with cheese and an Oreo McFlurry. It is looking to increase its share of the higher-margin beverages category by 1.5% globally, but the market wants to see some proof of the turnaround.
