Praestes
Praestes

Praestes: 'pri.stiːz' - to stand before, to excel, to guarantee

Praestes: 'pri.stiːz' - to stand before, to excel, to guaranteePraestes: 'pri.stiːz' - to stand before, to excel, to guaranteePraestes: 'pri.stiːz' - to stand before, to excel, to guarantee


Pairing tacticians with technicians, 

giving innovators and investors the commercial edge

About Praestes

Praestes delivers world-class: operator-led capability development workshops; assured talent placement; 

and rigorous user-centric investment due diligence, to support the defence and national security ecosystem.


Our edge: Evergreen access to the UK government's most operationally current, security cleared, capability and domain experts.


We give innovators and investors the insight and connections to accelerate commercial growth and adoption, 

whilst saving millions in R&D and BD.

Our Services

Technology validation

Praestes curates teams of expert users from Defence and wider government to validate and stress-test emerging technologies and services, ensuring product-market fit through real user feedback. This helps innovators shape concepts of employment aligned with operational needs, enables faster development cycles, reduces R&D waste, and accelerates market readiness. 


Companies validated by Praestes scale faster, burn less and win earlier adoption.

Due diligence

Praestes de-risks portfolio growth through deep-user validation and operational insight at the pre-investment stage. We leverage the expertise of world-class capability and domain specialists from across government to rigorously stress-test capability claims, assess operational relevance, and expose potential blind spots. 


Our approach ensures that capital is deployed with confidence - informed by real-world use cases, mission-critical requirements, and the perspectives of those closest to the problem. This not only strengthens investment decisions but also accelerates adoption and reduces downstream risk in defence, dual-use, and adjacent markets.

Talent placement

We connect industry and venture partners with exceptional talent from across government. By working closely with employers to understand their hiring priorities - and with service leavers to understand their aspirations, skills, and values - we create meaningful, high-impact matches. Every introduction is a reflection of us. 


We don’t just place people—we vouch for them. We stake our reputation on every placement, ensuring that transitioning personnel find fulfilling, purpose-driven roles, while organisations gain access to individuals with proven leadership, adaptability, and mission-focussed experience.

Frequently Asked Questions

Please reach us at info@praestes.co.uk if you cannot find an answer to your question.

Our network is built around a core of service leavers from UK Defence and other government departments. All possess security vetting and deep domain and capability expertise. Each team is carefully curated to match your specific needs, giving you direct access to the most operationally current users across Defence and national security. This ensures the expertise you receive is role-specific, mission-focused and grounded in recent, real-world experience.

We support organisations at every stage — from early-stage innovators testing ideas, to companies with fielded capabilities seeking to sharpen their edge. We also work with investors to support due diligence and market insight.

Our workshops and trials deliver critical feedback that helps you refine your product, accelerate adoption, and strategically position your business with Defence, security and resilience customers and investors. We provide more than just an assessment of strengths and weaknesses; we deliver clear, actionable recommendations based on what is proven to work in the field.


  • Faster development cycles – validate product-market fit sooner with real operator feedback
  • Reduced development costs – avoid wasted R&D by aligning with operational needs from the start
  • Lower BD costs – save months of outreach by accessing government users and decision-makers directly.
  • Accelerated time to market – arrive adoption-ready, not just prototype-ready

We offer a flexible suite of due diligence services, tailored to your specific needs - from light-touch assessments, to deep-dive evaluations of a company’s people, processes and technologies. Each engagement is supported by a bespoke team of multi-disciplinary experts, curated to match the requirement. Our approach delivers unique, actionable insights that go far beyond standard financial reviews, helping you de-risk investments, validate capabilities, and make confident investment decisions.

No two workshops are the same; the format depends on the capability or service being assessed. For some, a single day of interactive discussion and scenario-based stress-testing is right. For others, a day on the range is more valuable. Every workshop is bespoke — designed to deliver clarity, challenge assumptions, and optimise your path to success.

We make the process simple and tailored to your needs:


  • You book the venue or range: Whether it's a training ground or test site, you choose the location that suits your objectives.
  • We provide the expert users: Our team consists of hand-selected, highly experienced former specialist users with operational currency, who are familiar with your domain and capable of delivering constructive feedback.
  • We tailor the team to your requirements: Based on your goals, we select users with the right background, skillset and operational experience to ensure the trial delivers actionable insights.


Our aim is to validate product performance and gather structured feedback—all in a controlled and client-led environment.

Each team is purpose-built for the task, typically integrating intelligence analysts, operators, communicators, capability experts and strategists. This multidisciplinary, multi-domain composition ensures we deliver comprehensive, mission-focused expertise tailored to each challenge. Where appropriate, we also draw on specialist knowledge from other UK government departments and allied nations to enhance our operational depth and strategic reach.

Everything from autonomous systems, advanced sensors and AI tools, to novel munitions, cyber technologies, logistics solutions and decision-support software. We tailor the team to the requirement.

Instead of one consultant, you get a curated, multi-disciplinary expert team with decades of lived operational experience. The format is fast, discreet and delivers sharper, more actionable insights than traditional consultancy.

Yes. All sessions are conducted in strict confidence, underpinned by professional discretion and NDAs where required.

Yes. A concise, actionable report that captures key insights, risks and opportunities will follow each workshop, trial, or due diligence project.

The outputs are yours. If you wish, we can advise on how to shape them for HMG engagement, but we do not share them without your permission.

Many clients engage us for follow-on support — from refining propositions, to facilitating introductions, to helping shape trial and evaluation pathways with defence, security and resilience customers.

Pricing depends on the scale and scope of each engagement. We offer one-off workshops and field trials, as well as ongoing advisory relationships for those looking to embed Praestes expertise longer term. Get in touch and we can recommend the best approach over a call.

Contact Us

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Praestes Ltd

First Floor, 85 Great Portland Street, London W1W 7LT, UK

Info@praestes.co.uk Praestes Ltd. Company No: 16486930

Copyright © 2025 Praestes - All Rights Reserved.

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