It is now the 17th and the target has been reached - with particular by whomever donated the 500 USD.
Thank you, very much; and to everyone who donated. You have given of your time and treasure to a greater goal, when we all have plenty of important things to spend such money as we have.
As of yesterday, it may be that a bit of remote work has come my way - first in six months. I will find out in the next day or two.
If that work comes, it may well be I have enough to buy the printer myself, in full.
If this is the case, I'll post the proof of purchase here, because it seems to me we on an emotional level want to see what was needed was done, it's important, and cancel the fund raising; the pledges will not be called in.
My view of fund raising is that it is acceptable if there is a greater goal, and you cannot afford it yourself; then you can draw the attention of others to the goal, as others may also wish for that goal.
However, if you can do it yourself, then you do. Other people have their lives, their goals, often their children, and plenty of important things to spend their money on.
I'm a Brit, military volunteer, living in Kyiv.
I'm fund-raising on behalf of a startup who have done quite a bit of work on a normal electric interceptor drone, but which they've also fitted with a rocket motor.
When you make a pledge, you get the pledge ID and also a secret associated with that pledge, a random number. You need both to delete the pledge.
| Amount | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Date (UTC) | Pledge ID | Pledged | Reduced | Currency |
| 2026-06-17 | 11 | 100.00 | 95.27 | EUR |
| 2026-06-17 | 10 | 100.00 | 95.27 | EUR |
| 2026-06-16 | 8 | 100.00 | 95.27 | EUR |
| 2026-06-16 | 7 | 500.00 | 476.33 | USD |
| 2026-06-15 | 6 | 100.00 | 95.27 | GBP |
| 2026-06-11 | 4 | 100.00 | 95.27 | GBP |
| 2026-06-11 | 3 | 100.00 | 95.27 | EUR |
| 2026-06-10 | 2 | 100.00 | 95.27 | EUR |
| 2026-06-10 | 1 | 123.00 | 117.18 | EUR |
| Total CAD | 0.0 |
|---|---|
| Total CZK | 0.0 |
| Total DKK | 0.0 |
| Total EUR | 623.00 |
| Total GBP | 200.00 |
| Total HUF | 0.0 |
| Total PLN | 0.0 |
| Total RON | 0.0 |
| Total SEK | 0.0 |
| Total UAH | 0.0 |
| Total USD | 500.00 |
| Total in CZK* | 31161.29 |
| Goal in CZK | 29685.96 |
| Percentage of Goal | 104.97% |
| Pledge Reduction | 4.73% |
* Exchange rates as of 2026-06-08, from xe.com.
The reason for developing this drone is to keep up with developments of the Russian Shahed drone (which the Russians call "Geran").
Shahed is a one-way attack drone, originally from Iran. They're cheap, made in mass, Russia sends over like 500 at a time. I hear them every couple of nights, get to see them being shot down, or occasionally hitting buildings (I'm on 26th floor, I overlook about 150km2 of buildings).
The current by far most common version has a small propeller engine and does about 180 kmph with a 50kg warhead, and those are pretty well dealt with - more than 90% interception rates - but there are new versions being seen in small but growing numbers which have a jet engine and do something like 600 kmph with a 90kg warhead.
Existing interceptor drones do about 200, 250 kmph. That's fine for Shahed at 180 kmph, but not great for Shahed at 600 kmph.
Wikipedia page here : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shahed_drones.
So the idea is to take a normal interceptor drone with its electric motors and fit it with a small rocket motor which the pilot can trigger on demand, which takes the drone to about 600 kmph.
Small rockets in a drone seem to be the way to go - electric with props can't go that fast (drag from propellers), jets are way too big and expensive, full-on missiles are too expensive.
The startup is a few guys, mainly self-funded. They all have normal jobs to pay the bills, but a couple of donations/investments with an informal expectation of the possibility of a return have happened in the past.
They're currently looking for proper funding, so if you know someone who's interested, by all means let me know.