The Defense Tech Investor List for Founders

No entry matches that filter. Try a shorter word, or clear the filter.

Three years ago you could fit Europe’s dedicated defense investors in one room. Most generalist funds had an explicit exclusion in their LP agreements and would not look at the category at all.

That changed. European defence, security and resilience startups raised $8.7 billion in 2025, up 55% on the year before and roughly four times the level of five years earlier, according to the NATO Innovation Fund’s own state-of-the-sector report. Globally, venture investment into defense and dual-use passed $15 billion in 2025 and is tracking above $18 billion for 2026.

More usefully for a founder: dedicated defense funds took part in 34% of all European defense rounds in 2025. A specialist now sits at the table in a third of deals, which was not true in 2023.

This page lists them. It is a companion to the European, North American and Asia-Pacific lists, and to the deep tech list, which overlaps with this one at the hardware end.

Every link was checked before publishing.

What makes a defense raise different

Four things that do not apply to a normal B2B round.

• LP exclusions are real. Many European funds still cannot invest in weapons systems, even when the partner wants to. Ask early, because a fund that likes you and cannot proceed wastes a month.
• Dual-use is the usual workaround. Sensors, autonomy, comms, cyber and manufacturing sell to both civil and defense buyers. That framing opens funds that a pure weapons company cannot reach.
• The customer is slow and the reference is permanent. Procurement cycles outlast a seed runway. Investors in this category underwrite that; generalists usually do not.
• Export control shapes your cap table. ITAR in the US, national rules in Europe. Some investors on your cap table can make a later contract harder. Specialists know this and structure around it.

European dedicated defense funds

Funds whose mandate is defense, security and resilience rather than a thematic side pocket.

European dual-use and adjacent funds

These will not lead a weapons company, but they lead sensors, autonomy, space, comms and industrial hardware, which is where a large share of the category actually sits.

United States

The US market is older, larger and more comfortable with the category. Most large generalists now have a defense practice.

Government and non-dilutive capital

In this category the government is a customer, an investor and a grant-maker at once. Founders routinely miss the third.

EDTH: where European defense founders actually meet

If you are starting something in this category in Europe, the European Defense Tech Hub is the community to know.

It began as a single hackathon in Munich in June 2024, run by Benjamin Wolba and Jonatan Luther-Bergquist with no brand and no network behind it. Two years later it has run around 43 hackathons across European cities and tracks roughly 80 companies that came out of them, from stealth teams to companies that have closed pre-seed and seed rounds around EUR 3 million.

What makes it useful is the shape of it. A hackathon is a low-cost way to meet a technical co-founder, test whether you like the problem, and get in front of the operators and investors who show up to judge. That is a materially better first step than cold-emailing the funds above.

The hackathons rotate through cities, so check the schedule rather than a fixed calendar.

European companies worth knowing

Useful for benchmarking a raise, and for working out who the credible comparables and acquirers are.

Where to go next

• The Deep Tech Investor List - the hardware, science and spinout side, which overlaps heavily with this one
• The Startup Investor List for European Founders - the generalist European picture
• The Startup Investor List for North America - US and Canadian funds by stage and metro
• Founder networks by country and state - communities rather than capital
• Startup data sources and research lists - Dealroom and the NIF report cover this sector best