Today, we are announcing that we are leading another round in Helsing, which has established itself as a market leader in providing AI-based solutions for European defense. 

Since the inception of the company, supporting Helsing's growth has been a mission-critical goal for us. We firmly believe that the company is integral to Europe’s resilience and is building what can be seen as vital to the protection of democracy in the region and beyond. 

We are hopeful and determined that Europe will be home to three of the ten global AI leaders in the next two decades, buoyed by its passionate talent, industrial core, and educational ecosystem. However, this vision cannot be realized if European democracy is fundamentally at risk. Ensuring the stability and resilience of our democratic institutions is paramount to fostering an environment where AI can enable next-generation global market leaders. This is the responsibility that we and the founders of Helsing embrace on our journey together.

Europe faces significant challenges. With a war on its doorstep and a deepening geopolitical bifurcation between Eastern and Western Europe, we believe Europe’s fragility surfaces with more urgency than ever. As we see it, Europe’s defense sector has been woefully underinvested in for decades as a consequence of a dormant defense policy and an associated lack of procurement. Therefore, we believe it is now in dire need of rapid innovation to modernize its deterrence capabilities. In that vein, Macron delivered a stark warning in his second Sorbonne speech a few weeks ago that 'Europe could die' if it continues to delegate its defense and economic security to other parts of the world.  

From an investment perspective, this presents a significant opportunity for Helsing to modernize existing systems as well as help European governments leapfrog to a next-generation defense technology architecture. This opportunity lies at the convergence of our two worldviews around Global Resilience and Applied AI. Global Resilience underscores our belief in the need to leverage technology in order to modernize critical industries for democratic societies. In the defense sector, we have been doing this work for over two decades. We acquired BBN, now part of Raytheon; partnered with Anduril since the seed stage; and have had the privilege of working with Vannevar Labs, Applied Intuition, and many other ambitious companies building critical technology for the defense industry.

As we are witnessing conflict and instability increase globally, we cannot think of a more urgent mission for our European RenAIssance than this. It is remarkable to see how quickly they have emerged as a new defense prime contractor for key European governments. In June 2023, the German government selected Helsing and its partner SAAB to provide the new electronic warfare capabilities for the upcoming update to the Eurofighter. In August 2023, Helsing and its partners won the contract to provide the AI backbone for the Future Combat Air System (FCAS) program. In addition, on February 24, 2024, the Ukrainian Minister of Strategic Industries, Alexander Kamyshin, and Helsing Co-CEO and Co-Founder Gundbert Scherf signed a Memorandum of Understanding on cooperation in the security and defense sector. As part of the agreement, Helsing will equip Ukrainian drones with modern AI capabilities and become a key player in protecting Ukraine’s freedom amid today’s electronic warfare and drone war. This makes Helsing the fastest new entrant in defense to win a program of record in history.

The best founders are often seismographic to societal change, anticipating tectonic shifts before anyone else. With Torsten, Gundbert, and Niklas at the helm, the Helsing team is led by visionary, ambitious, and mission-driven founders. They have gathered an exceptional team that is not only deeply committed to the mission but is collectively starting to transform the defense industry at what they like to call “Helsing-speed”. The short period in which Helsing has attracted this extraordinary caliber of talent showcases not just the strength of the European talent base but the magnetism of Helsing’s deep sense of purpose combined with an ambitious technical vision and an ethical true north to push the frontier of AI. 

We have believed in their mission and have backed the Helsing team since inception. Today we are leading their EUR 450m Series C alongside our friends Accel, Elad Gil, Greenoaks, Lightspeed, and Plural.

We believe we will all look back a decade from now and say that the world is a safer place because of the contributions of this company. We feel privileged to support their work.