The European Investment Bank has agreed a €25 million loan to Dutch fibre-optic sensor firm Optics11, backing technology designed to help European militaries and governments detect threats to undersea cables, naval assets, and other critical infrastructure.
The deal, announced on Thursday, is aimed at getting Optics11’s fibre-optic sensing systems into wider use. Those systems are designed to pick up faint vibrations and acoustic signals in challenging environments, with the company pointing to applications ranging from submarine monitoring to maritime surveillance and the protection of naval assets and power grids, at a time when subsea infrastructure is coming under sharper scrutiny.
The loan comes from the EIB and is backed under the European Commission’s InvestEU programme, part of a broader effort to shore up Europe’s strategic autonomy in areas spanning energy security and defence technology. According to the bank, Optics11 operates in two sectors it considers critical to that goal: underwater security and energy resilience.
“Our continent is working hard to make sure it can hold its own in many different fields, but we need to support the companies that can make that happen,” said EIB vice-president Robert de Groot. “From the energy sector to security and defence capabilities, we need to be able to have the best technology for known and unknown threats. In short, the solutions developed by Optics11 are providing Europe with critical solutions and competitive advantages for the world that is coming.”
Optics11 pointed to the growing exposure of Europe’s most sensitive infrastructure, much of it operating out of sight beneath the seabed or embedded deep within energy networks. The company says its fibre-optic sensors are designed to provide continuous monitoring of infrastructure, giving operators earlier detection of interference or damage in challenging environments.
“Disruptions to subsea infrastructure, maritime trade, or failures in high-voltage grids have immediate and far-reaching consequences on our society,” said Optics11 chief executive Paul Heiden. “With this EIB financing, Optics11 accelerates the deployment of unique fibre-optic sensing technologies that protect the infrastructure so essential to Europe’s security and energy resilience.”
The EIB’s move comes as governments are also stepping up efforts to monitor and defend the oceans themselves. In December, the UK government launched its Atlantic Bastion undersea warfare programme, a sweeping initiative to knit together autonomous vessels, AI-enabled sensors, and traditional warships in a mission to protect cables, pipelines, and other critical infrastructure from hostile activity in the North Atlantic – a threat the UK has explicitly linked to increased Russian undersea operations.
