A model of the CA-1 Europa unmanned aircraft manufactured by defense contractor Helsing is on display in front of the company’s booth at the International Aerospace Exhibition (ILA) at Berlin Expo Center Airport.
Sebastian Christoph Gornau Picture Alliance | Getty Images
European defense startup Helsing announced Monday that it has raised $1.8 billion in a funding round that values the German company at $18 billion.
New and existing investors participated in the financing, including US investment bank JPMorgan Chase and venture capital funds such as Lightspeed Venture Partners and Iconic.
“Investor demand significantly exceeds available allocation, reflecting strong and growing confidence in AI-driven and software-defined defense technologies,” Hellsing said in a press release.
Helsing promotes itself as a hardware and software platform for defense. The company makes drones and underwater surveillance weapons, and builds artificial intelligence and autonomous software to power these military applications.
The Munich-based company has established itself as a European champion in the field of defense, with the HX-2 drone being one of the systems supplied to the Ukrainian military. Hellsing benefits from Europe’s new focus on building sovereign capabilities in technology and defense.
“The company remains primarily European-owned and emphasizes its deep roots in Europe,” Helsing said in a press release.
The latest funding round “accelerates Hellsing’s mission to develop and integrate an entirely new AI platform into the defense capabilities of a growing number of partner nations,” the company added.
Investors in the private market are keen to support new-age defense companies. In the US, Hellsing rival Anduril raised $5 billion in May at a valuation of $61 billion. Shield AI and self-driving shipbuilding company Saronic are some of the startups that have recently raised funding.
