Helsing, the defence tech startup now valued at over $13 billion, is building out a network of partnerships to embed itself deeper into the military ecosystem to grow its business — a key route for smaller and younger companies that want to level up to primes in the procurement game. Today, it unveiled the latest of these alliances.
Helsing is teaming up with Systematic, a Danish company that makes software operations platforms for critical industries such as defence, national security, healthcare and utilities. Among other functions, the pair said Helsing’s AI tools will be integrated into Systematic’s platforms to enable customers using the latter tools to control reconnaissance and/or striking drone swarms powered by Helsing’s software.
The companies are timing their news to coincide with a major defence industry event, DSEI, which is taking place in London, England this week.
The two have collaborated previously to deliver solutions to militaries, and it was working together on those projects that drove this bigger partnership Helsing’s co-founder and co-CEO, Gundbert Scherf said at DSEI today.
Both he and Michael Holm, Systematic’s chairman and founder, confirmed to Resilience Media that there was no financial investment involved in this partnership. The pair declined to disclose other financial terms.
Systematic is privately-held and according to its most-recently disclosed figures, its was profitable on revenues of €218 million in 2023/2024.
The deal underscores more widely how European companies are linking up to collectively raise the region’s game when it comes to defence and resilience. It’s part of a new stance the region has taken on as a result of shifting geopolitical sands both close to home in countries like Ukraine, as well as further afield, opening up an opportunity to companies that can offer “sovereign” technology that is based out of Europe.
“This partnership brings together two entrepreneurial and sovereign European technology companies,” said Scherf in a separate statement. “We share a mission and an ambition — to intelligently network our forces at the speed the threat situation demands. What wins wars is not individual systems, but the ability to connect them and to iterate at the speed of relevance. Together, we will deliver exactly that for Europe’s defence.”
It also underscores how much of an impact Ukraine has had on the next generation of defence, including the roles of AI, electronic warfare and technology overall in gaining competitive edge (in a race against opponents also developing in these same areas).
In that vein, many European countries and their allies see Ukraine not just as a critical fight to defend a nation’s sovereignty against a long-time adversary of their own, but also a template for how battles and wars will work in the years ahead, both in terms of equipment and tactics. AI is an experience-hungry monster, so having more of that experience is part of the value. Helsing is one of the vendors that has been learning from the field in Ukraine, so by partnering with Helsing, Systematic will be tapping into that as well.
More specific to these two companies, it is also an important partnership for Helsing to fill out its growth ambitions.
Helsing was founded in 2021, and it currently produces an air-based strike drone (the HX-2), an underwater drone (SG-1+Lura), and AI software to power both them and third-party equipment. It has a healthy bank balance to put into more R&D, acquisitions to bolt on other tech, and business development: it’s raised more than $1.5 billion per PitchBook data, including a $650 million round in June 2025.
It will be deals like the one Helsing is announcing today that will help Helsing widen the funnel for more business conversations. Systematic says that more than 50 nations use its SitaWare, its Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (C4ISR) platform for “management across the entire battlespace.” (Helsing today works with militaries in just four countries: the UK, Estonia, Ukraine and its home market of Germany.)
The is not just a one-sided benefit. Systematic has been in business since 1985. It was early to identify the role that data would play in defence (and offence), but its roots predate the last several cycles of tech innovation (even as its tech has definitely iterated over that time). A partnership with Helsing will help it leapfrog into offering and supporting more of the uncrewed, autonomous and other AI technologies that are starting to be incorporated into more military tactics.
“Systematic has always been at the forefront of data delivery for military operations, with Helsing emerging as one of the major European players in AI and new technologies. As the AI age is increasing how we can use data, partnerships such as this help our users to get the most out of their systems, and the other platforms that support them,” said Holm in a statement.
Customers will be “drone ready” as a result of the integration, the pair said in a statement, which will include being able to raise and manage sensors and effectors as drone swarms.
That will include, critically, the ability to use Helsing hardware alongside products from other vendors in the building and management of tasks customers typically run through SitaWare, they said. These include target lists, creating plans and orders, tasking strike assets, deconflicting airspace to ensure safe operations, and delivering fused friendly and enemy force pictures. The idea will be to give commanders end-to end capability in “find, fix, finish, exploit, analyse, disseminate” strategies.s
