THE CAPITAL RE-ARMAMENT: European Defence-Native VCs & The Strategic Asset Map (2025 Outlook)
Europe’s defence-tech resurgence is being driven by a structural shift in how capital, industry and policy interact. Geopolitical tension, war-driven capability gaps and multi-year increases in defence spending have triggered an unprecedented mobilisation of venture capital around dual-use and security technologies. Funding into European defence tech has reached historic highs, while a new cohort of “defence-native” investors—sovereign-backed funds, deep-tech generalists repositioning toward security, and specialist managers with military or intelligence backgrounds—has emerged to fill long-standing gaps in early-stage financing. For governments, this movement is no longer just about innovation: it is tied to strategic autonomy, industrial resilience and the ability to generate sovereign capabilities in AI, autonomy, space systems, sensors and advanced materials. For founders, it marks the creation of an ecosystem that finally understands defence procurement cycles, regulatory constraints and the technical depth required to field deployable systems. Against this backdrop, venture capital is becoming one of the main channels through which Europe’s rearmament is financed—an important change for policymakers, investors and operators who need a clear, data-driven picture of who the real actors are and how capital is being deployed.
The report offers precisely that: a rigorous, evidence-based mapping of Europe’s defence-native venture landscape, built from the latest available data. Readers will find a detailed analytical reconstruction of sovereign anchors (NATO Innovation Fund, EIF facilities, national strategic investors), deep-tech generalists leaning into defence (Vsquared, OTB, Alpine Space Ventures, JOIN Capital), and specialist funds with defence as their core mandate (Keen, Twin Track, 201 Ventures, D3 in Kyiv). For each category, the report outlines fund strategies, LP composition, ticket sizes, sector focus, and portfolio traction—all supported by downloadable tables that function as operational tools. These include a complete investor database, a strategic asset map of startups and scale-ups, an M&A and liquidity tracker, a geographic cluster analysis of Europe’s new defence hubs, a breakdown of LP backers, and a structured assessment of ecosystem gaps and future investment opportunities. Together, these assets allow practitioners to integrate the findings directly into sourcing, due-diligence, procurement, and policy-planning workflows—turning a complex, fast-moving market into a set of structured insights that can support real strategic decisions.
