DTCP has launched a €500 million fund dedicated to defence, security, and resilience technologies, marking what it says is Europe’s largest privately backed investment initiative focused squarely on the sector.
The fund, dubbed Project Liberty and first detailed by Bloomberg in August last year, is DTCP’s first to be dedicated exclusively to defence and security technologies and its eighth fund overall. While Europe remains the main focus, the fund is firmly NATO-aligned, giving it leeway to back companies from other NATO countries and close partners when their technologies matter to Europe’s security, interoperability, or critical supply chains
Hamburg-based DTCP — which is backed by Deutsche Telekom as an anchor investor but says that its name stands for “Digital Transformation Capital Partners” reflecting its spun-out status — manages more than €3 billion in assets currently. Project Liberty aims to attract backing from institutional investors, family offices, and corporate backers, with a focus on scaling high-performing European defence and dual-use technology companies.
The firm framed the fund as both a commercial opportunity and a strategic response to Europe’s shifting security environment.
“Project Liberty represents a highly consistent extension of our role as a specialist investment platform,” said Vicente Vento, chief executive of DTCP. He argued that defence and resilience have been converging with technology and infrastructure investing for more than a decade, an overlap where DTCP already claims deep experience.
Vento also pointed to long-term tailwinds for the sector, noting that Europe has “underinvested in defence while geopolitical risks have steadily increased,” even as governments embark on what he described as an “irreversible path” to modernising military capabilities.
The fund’s name is a deliberate signal, according to Thomas Preuß, managing partner at DTCP and chief investment officer for Project Liberty.
“Technological capability is a core prerequisite for Europe’s sovereignty, security, and democratic stability,” he said, adding that the objective is to help build a stronger European security architecture through targeted investments in scalable, high-performance technologies. At the same time, Preuß stressed that the fund is “clearly return-driven,” combining capital with operational expertise, industrial networks, and experience navigating public-sector stakeholders
Project Liberty plans to invest across Series A to C rounds, with up to 30 portfolio companies and an average ticket size of around €20 million. The focus areas span software, cyber defence, artificial intelligence, autonomous systems, and other technologies that either complement existing defence systems or advance them through new approaches.
DTCP is no newcomer to the space. Its existing portfolio already includes cybersecurity and security-adjacent firms such as Arctic Wolf, Axonius, Zenity, Anomali, and Ox Security, alongside dual-use defence companies including the German drone specialist Quantum Systems. With Project Liberty, the firm is making a more explicit bet that defence, security, and resilience technologies will remain a defining growth theme for Europe for decades to come.
