Lakestar, one of Europe’s largest venture capital (VC) firms, has announced a new $300 million (€262 million) fund dedicated entirely to defence and dual-use technologies.
Resilience I, as the fund is called, formalizes a strategy nearly a decade in the making, having invested in companies such as anti-drone startup Cambridge Aerospace; rocket-maker Isar Aerospace; ground robotics firm Arx Robotics; and drone defence juggernaut Helsing, which this week emerged as Europe’s biggest defence tech startup off the back of a $1.8 billion raise at $18 billion valuation.
The fund closed oversubscribed, Lakestar says, with backing from institutional investors, family offices and strategic partners. On the advisory board are some of the West’s most senior defence and policy figures: Nicholas Carter, who served as the UK’s Chief of the Defence Staff; Volker Wieker, his German counterpart as head of the Bundeswehr; Martha Lane Fox, the tech entrepreneur and crossbench peer; and Mike Pompeo, the former US Secretary of State.
From generalist to defence specialist
Founded in 2012 by Germany VC Klaus Hommels, Lakestar built its name as a generalist backer of European and US companies, with a portfolio spanning fintech, travel, healthcare, and more. However, that approach started to narrow back in October, when Hommels published an open letter to investors, writing that the firm would stop raising new generalist venture funds altogether, and would instead concentrate on its existing portfolio, with future bets coming increasingly from his own capital.
In the same letter, Hommels traced the roots of that decision back to his first personal defence investment in 2017, at a time he said the sector was “uninvestable” for most institutional funds. He named Revolut, Auterion, Helsing, Isar Aerospace, Neko Health and Public as the companies now central to that concentrated strategy, and said Lakestar would open a new office in Munich — a hub for Europe’s defence and deep tech sector.
More importantly, Hommels also laid out the broader conviction driving that direction, pointing to European technological sovereignty as a core concern.
“Sovereignty and advancing Europe’s capabilities in critical technologies should be a core concern for all of us, and will remain a core focus for Lakestar,” Hommels wrote at the time.
Fast-forward to June, and Bloomberg reported that Hommels was pitching investors on a $250-300 million fund dedicated entirely to European defence technology. And that same month, Resilience Media reported that defence contractor BAE Systems was putting €25 million each into Lakestar and rival firm Expeditions as a limited partner. Notably, Expeditions announced it had closed its second defence-focused fund just ten days ago, a €197 million ($225 million) pot that itself was one of the biggest in Europe for the sector.
‘The salespeople of American technologies’
While European sovereignty has been at the heart of Hommels’ investment thinking for some time, he points to a recent development to illustrate the urgency. In an interview with the Financial Times published today, he cited Washington’s recent moves to restrict Anthropic, the AI company behind Claude, from exporting sensitive AI models as the latest sign that Europe can’t take American technology access for granted.
“If you don’t get the message now and still believe these fairy tales that are told to you by the salespeople of American technologies, then this is without responsibility,” Hommels told the FT. “You need to be as independent as you can, and that means the technology as well as the financing of the technology.”
Lakestar’s defence portfolio, which spans autonomous systems, AI-driven defence software, drone manufacturing, missile technology, space and maritime platforms, is reflective of that view. In a press release announcing the new fund, Hommels said that “freedom is not for free,” arguing that building sovereign technology was only half the equation — the capital backing it needed to be European too.
“Sovereignty and Europe’s capabilities in critical technologies are a core concern for all of us,” he said. “Europe and its Western allies need sovereign technology capital in the defence and dual-use sectors.”
*Note: Partners at Lakestar and Expeditions both invest in Resilience Media in an individual capacity. This does not impact any editorial decision regarding story selection.
