Good afternoon from the team at Resilience Media
Today’s newsletter corresponds with the release of the Democracy Perception Index 2025 by the Alliance of Democracies Foundation, the opening day of the Copenhagen Democracy Summit, and is the week after the London Defence Conference. Top of mind across all is the theme of alliances.
While the traditional NATO alliance falters we see new partnerships emerging, showing strength in numbers in the face of America’s withdrawal and threats from Russia and China. Denmark is getting close to Ukraine, and the United Kingdom hopes to emerge as a leader of NATO alongside Germany.
However, at a conference this week a Scandinavian bluntly argued that the umbrella the UK could provide is not large enough. Perhaps countering that perception, the great and the good of the British defence establishment were gathered at London Defence Conference last week, including British Prime Minister Keir Starmer. He opened the conference with a speech setting the scene as the country gears itself toward larger defence spending with the phrase: ‘First in NATO and NATO first.’
Today Anders Fogh Rasmussen released Freedom is Not Free, his five-point plan for European defence. In the report Rasmussen stresses themes very familiar to the Resilience Media audience, including the need to mobilise private capital by changing European ESG rules and strategic allocation of public funding. It will be interesting to see how these proposals will affect the tech sector, but we are happy to see these points raised in here.
In Resilience Media news, it’s an exciting week as we’re opening up applications for Launch at Resilience Conference. Last year six startups appeared on our stage to launch products or come out of stealth. Selected startups get access to the investors, media, and customers at our conference, and coverage here on Resilience Media. See our announcement below to apply for Launch at our September conference. If you know one who would be a good fit, send them our way.
We’ve also got a lot of startup coverage for you:
- Satellite mass-manufacturer Apex’ $200 million funding round to secure US dominance in space
- Origin Robotics: Latvian start-up unveils drone interceptor designed to take down deadly Shaheds
- UK MoD Expands Test Range Access for UK Startups and SMEs
- Orca AI raises $72.5M to expand autonomous maritime tech and defence applications
- Helsing unveils AI-powered acoustic detection system to ward off naval threats
I’ll be back in your inbox next week.
-Leslie, co-founder, Resilience Media
We are now accepting applications for Launch at Resilience Conference 2025, our startup showcase for early‑stage companies building products in defence, security, and resilience. Selected participants will present their company and demo their products on the main stage of Resilience Conference. Applications are open until June 7, 2025.
Why apply? We feature high calibre companies to a very targeted audience. The companies that appeared on stage last year have gone on to have raise well over $50 million in fresh capital, landed multi‑agency contracts, and rolled out hardware that’s already being tested in live‑fire environments. Following on from Resilience Conference, the Launch cohort were featured in mainstream publications such as Forbes, Fortune, and CNN, developed investor relationships, and engagement with customers.
Over the coming weeks we will catch up with our 2024 cohort, sharing their funding and product news to show what’s possible when you get in front of the right audience. If you want to demo on our stage in September, apply here. Want to watch these future defence tech leaders launch on our stage? Buy a ticket to Resilience Conference 2025 here.
In modern conflict, a new generation of defence startups is reshaping how militaries think about scale, autonomy, and control. Ark Robotics is one of them. Founded during the early phases of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the company emerged from a group of engineers building ground-based robots as a weekend project. What began as ad hoc experimentation has turned into a structured effort to solve one of the most pressing problems in military robotics: the pilot bottleneck.
“Yeah, so we basically started building a bunch of crazy Kamikaze UGVs that turned out more effective than we expected them to be,” said founder Achi Takagama. “It was literally a weekend project with friends, which escalated quickly to what is now Ark.” Read more here.
Latitude59
May 21-23, 2025, Tallinn, Estonia. Latitude59 is the flagship startup and tech event from Estonia, running since 2012. In recent years, it has grown into a global platform, connecting ecosystems, communities and innovators who change the world and make it a better place. Resilience Media is proud to be a media partner for this year’s event, and we’re pleased to see more focus on defence and security at the conference. Register to attend here.
Europe
At an electronic warfare conference in Rome, calls for industry innovation and reinvention
British, Italian carriers team up to ‘send strong message’
UK prepared to pay to access EU defence programmes
National Security
How accurate is forecasting of military technologies?
How China is still getting its hands on Nvidia’s gear
Investing
Buyout groups and VCs ready to play role in Europe’s rearmament
Startups
Delian Alliance Industries launches Interceptigon autonomous strike systems
