When Daniel EK is not busy running a Spotify or building a recent company related to health technology based on AI, he apparently undertakes mass plants for the way forward for European war.
The billionaire, who lives primarily in Stockholm, has just led EUR 600 million investments in Helsing, a 4 -year -old, based in Munich of the Technology company, which is now valued EUR 12 billionAs the Financial Times first reports and confirmed individually by TechCrunch. The contract makes it one of the most beneficial private corporations in Europe; It also emphasizes Europe’s efforts to build its own military muscle when the world becomes more mess and the US changes inside.
The numbers help to inform a story. Helsing raised $ 450 million just a yr ago; Now he returns with this even larger round run by the EKO Prima Materia investment company. This is a part of a wider technological defense boom that sees money flooding corporations equivalent to the American giant Anduril, which has just collected $ 2.5 billion under the leadership of the Fund Fund, and European drone manufacturers of Quantum Systems and Tekver. (In recent weeks they have announced EUR 160 million AND 70 million eurosAccordingly in rounds, which they each place them on the so -called unicorn territory.)
Helsing refused to offer further details about how he plans to make use of recent financing.
As for what exactly, Helsing, Wired said last yr to think about it as the transformation of a modern war into something that appears more like video gameexcept for very real consequences.
The company’s foremost product downloads huge amounts of information from military sensors, radars and weapons, and then uses artificial intelligence to create intuitive visualizations in real time of what is happening on the battlefield. Instead of soldiers making decisions about life or death based on telephone conversations and hand -drawn maps, everyone can see the same information, whether from the front ditch or command center.
But what began as a programming company AI became much more ambitious. Helsing is now building its own strike and planes and said that he is working on a fleet of unmanned mini submarines to enhance naval supervision.
Time is not accidental. As Techcrunch said, American investor Eric Slesinger: “European governments have been waiting too long to think about what meant their security.” The calling call appeared with the invasion of Russia to Ukraine, which explained that Europe couldn’t rely on American protection itself. Elections in the USA at the end of last yr President Donald Trump – much more interested Progressive American interests – Since then, he gave a much higher point.
Now European leaders are talking about defense expenses, while achieving strategic autonomy, which suggests their ability to manage with their very own safety. The Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis recently summed up traffic in a separate interview with TechCrunch: “We will spend a lot of money to defend as Europe. The defense landscape is changing, which will no longer apply to planes, tanks – all this will be much more digitally and driven by AI.”
A few years ago, this implementation was an impulse for NATO Innovation Fund, the world’s first multi -seven Venture capital fund, supported by 24 NATO allies. But the capital pool is only one of the few signs that Europe has seriously developed in building its own defense technology ecosystem, and not rely on the United States to guard.
EK, which he first invested in Helsing in 2021Before the outbreak of the war for Ukraine, possibly for a moment he saw where he was going. As he said in a press release about Monday financing: “Because Europe quickly strengthens its defense capabilities in response to evolving geopolitical challenges, there is an urgent need to invest in advanced technologies that provide its strategic autonomy.”
Other investors in the recent Helsing round are earlier supporters of Lightspeed Ventures, ACCl, variety of numerical numbers, general Catalyst and Saab in addition to recent BDT investors and MSD Partners. The company has now collected EUR 1.37 billion.