Commercial Software in Defense Industry

The U.S. Army’s recent announcement that it will soon launch a dedicated drone marketplace has drawn attention from defense analysts and industry specialists, highlighting the growing role of integrated procurement platforms in modern warfare.

While the Army’s plan is still in development, several fully functioning solutions already exist at both government and private levels. One of them is the London-based Milzo Defence Ecosystem Platform, created to address long-standing challenges in the global defense market.

In an interview with Defence Blog, Svyatoslav Posmetnyy, Founder and CEO of MILZO.netexplained that the concept came directly from his decade-long experience in international defense trade and production.

“Over more than 10 years of work, I repeatedly encountered all the key barriers: from the lack of quick access to verified partners to the chaotic collection of information from dozens of sources,” he said. “To sign a contract, you had to simultaneously correspond via email or messengers, verify a company through personal contacts, collect catalogs from various websites, and also manage the project in endless spreadsheets.”

Posmetnyy noted that the problem becomes unmanageable when several projects are handled at once. “Right now I have more than 70 projects at different stages — and you can feel the pain of a defense market player. So much money and so many opportunities are lost due to missed milestones, forgotten information, missed meetings, or unconfirmed details,” he explained.

According to Posmetnyy, Milzo was designed as a single ecosystem — a universal workspace for manufacturers, traders, facilitators, subcontractors, and specialized service providers. The platform integrates partner search, contract execution, and post-contract activities into one secure interface.

“If processes are not integrated, business loses speed,” he said. “That’s why in Milzo we combined CRM, analytics, catalogs, a secure messenger, and an event calendar in one interface — so the user sees everything they need immediately.”

Posmetnyy stressed that Milzo is not just a marketplace or a CRM system. It functions as a digital ecosystem with a global catalog of companies and products, an opportunity hub with worldwide tenders, and the ability to generate company-specific catalogs and market offers. It also features an integrated project management tool for unlimited co-executors, a secure encrypted messenger, event scheduling, analytics, news, and market insights.

“We combined automatic verification of real documents with a reputation filter through associations and clusters, the ability to leave reviews, and a rating system based on activity,” he said. The interface is backed by 256-bit encryption and detailed project access control.

Milzo has already secured partnerships with the Croatian Defense Industry Manufacturers Association, the Ukrainian Cluster Alliance, and the Ukrainian Dual-Use Technologies Cluster. Posmetnyy said these agreements have brought dozens of new companies into the system and opened direct cooperation channels between Ukrainian and European markets.

“Croatian manufacturers can now see current Ukrainian requests, and our companies can see opportunities in the EU,” he said.

Negotiations are ongoing with Czech, Slovak, and Bulgarian associations, with plans to create a cross-border network of European clusters on Milzo’s platform.

“Ukraine today is becoming an integrating and driving force in the global defense sector, and for us, speed, minimal transaction costs, multi-level partnerships, and innovation are crucial — and these principles are built into Milzo’s functionality,” Posmetnyy noted.

International expansion is a priority. Posmetnyy’s approach is based on the principle of “local partner + global platform,” working through associations in each country to adapt tools and verification to local standards. The team is prepared to integrate local catalogs, certification requirements, languages, and export control modules, with the option to offer a White Label version of the platform.

“We use 256-bit encryption, access control settings, and activity logs for each project, plus regular cybersecurity audits by certified partners,” Posmetnyy explained. The biggest challenge ahead, he said, is convincing a conservative market of the platform’s usefulness and security, a goal for which support from defense media and opinion leaders will be essential.

Milzo’s development roadmap includes automatic partner matching, a module for startups and innovators, project financing tools, expanded analytics, and logistical and financial services. One of the next major milestones will be the release of iOS and Android applications, expected next year.

Artificial intelligence will play a growing role in Milzo’s future.

“We realize that developing the platform without integrating AI tools will be either impossible or unsuccessful,” Posmetnyy said.

Planned AI-driven features include a personal assistant for tender searches and proposal preparation, automated recognition of brochures and catalogs, smart business card scanning, and automatic meeting matching at defense exhibitions.

As the U.S. Army moves toward its own drone marketplace, platforms like Milzo demonstrate that integrated, secure, and scalable solutions are already redefining how the defense sector connects, procures, and collaborates on a global scale.