Welcome onboard EstBAN new Fund Member – Unicorn Machine

We chatted with Unicron Machines Ashton Barger in order to shed some light on what they do and what's their goal when joining Estonian business angels.

What is a Unicorn Machine?

We are actually a group of venture studios building companies with the real potential to become unicorns. Yes, the name is deliberately ambitious, and the model behind it is simple: rather than investing in companies other people have already started, Unicorn Machine builds them from nothing.

Our studios take an idea through customer validation, product development, fundraising, and building the founding team - then spin the company out to stand on its own.

We work through specialised studios, each with its own domain and playbook. Mythic Builder creates AI-enabled B2B software, currently across accounting, recruitment, and music. Glazeworks focuses on hardware - robotics, physical AI, and electric mobility. More studios and an accelerator program will follow.

Where do you invest and/or what kind of startups you're looking for?

Today our capital goes into the companies our own studios build, at the very earliest stage - often before there is a product, sometimes before there is a founder in the driver's seat.

What we look for is consistent across every studio: a market large enough to support a genuine category leader, a problem that isn't being properly addressed today, and a product that deserves to exist rather than one that merely can be built. If a company can't credibly become the leader in its category, we don't start it.

For angels, it means exclusive deal access at a stage usually invisible from the outside - while the thesis is still being proven.

What's your goal or expectations with EstBAN?

EstBAN has spent more than a decade building something very difficult: a network where experienced investors share deal flow, judgement, and hard-won lessons rather than guarding them. That culture is a real part of why Estonia punches so far above its weight, and being invited into it is a privilege we don't take lightly.

Our intention is to be useful members first. We want to learn from people who have been investing in this ecosystem far longer than we have, and we want to give the community more places to gather. We're building a programme of monthly meetups, hackathons, and a summit, and EstBAN members will be welcome at all of them.

Longer term, our ambition is straightforward: to put more into the Estonian ecosystem than we take out. New companies headquartered here, new jobs, and capital reinvested locally.

• More information: https://www.unicornmachine.com/
• Unicorn Machine representatives in EstBAN are Ashton Barger and Kyle Ueckermann