Defence was, for a long time, a taboo area for venture capital in Europe.
The reasons for these were several: restrictions put on VCs by their LPs (often public entities in Europe) and the difficulty for defence startups to get traction (also due to a not unified military agenda in Europe).
Please see the list here: https://app.dealroom.co/lists/47424
This has changed in the aftermath of the invasion of Ukraine by Russia, which brought back attention in Europe to the need for defence capabilities and sovereignty. Europe governments are ramping up defence spending and several initiatives have been launched to support startups and SMEs, such as the European Defence Fund managed by DEFIS and the Nato Innovation Fund.
Many VCs are now turning their attention to defence. We mapped some of the most interesting defence and dual-tech startups in Europe (we added only some examples of space tech, to see them in full see notes at the bottom).
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