Estonia’s public and private sectors are closely integrated, enabling smooth collaboration between government and industry. DefenceTech, one of Estonia’s most innovative and fast-growing sectors, is a prime example of such synergy.
This week, Milrem Robotics, a leading European robotics and autonomous systems developer from Estonia, welcomed former Commander of the Estonian Defence Forces, General Martin Herem, to its team.
According to the company, this move combines Herem’s extensive military expertise with Milrem’s technological capabilities. General Herem was the commander of the Estonian Defence Forces from December 2018 until the end of June 2024. Now, he will join the company as a Military Strategy Advisor starting in August.
His role will be to bridge the gap between end-user requirements and product development, specifically leading the process of assessing lessons learned in Ukraine and converting them into use cases for land robotics in the future. Herem will also advise the company’s management, business development, and capability development units in decision-making from a military user perspective.
“Milrem Robotics is deploying ground robotic systems on a larger scale in different countries, and it’s very important that this new capability will match and augment existing defence capabilities,” said Kuldar Väärsi, CEO of Milrem Robotics.
Milrem’s THeMIS
“General Herem has extensive knowledge of how to build deployable military capabilities in efficient and smart ways. He will support Milrem in providing even better and more matching system-level solutions based on ground robotics,” Väärsi added. Milrem’s primary offering — the THeMIS Unmanned Ground Vehicle (UGV) — will be the focus. It’s a multi-mission UGV designed to support dismounted troops by serving as a transport platform, remote weapon station, IED detection and disposal unit, and more.
“The war in Ukraine and the usage of Milrem Robotics’ THeMIS and other ground robots on the battlefield has demonstrated the importance of these systems and the growing need to develop them further so that they can better fulfil their mission – keeping soldiers as far from danger as possible,” said Herem. “My goal will be to ensure that what has been learned on the Ukrainian battlefield will be implemented in future robotic systems,” he added.
Milrem made history by raising the largest foreign investment round in Estonia’s defence sector. Founded in 2013 as a bus repair company, the startup now sells its innovative products in 16 countries, including the US, Spain, the Netherlands, Norway, France, Germany, and the UK.
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