The NATO Innovation Fund, one of the biggest investors into defence and resilience technology in Europe, is going local. Today it announced that it is opening a branch in Warsaw, a new operation that it will be using to boost “engagement” both in Poland and the wider region covering countries in Central and Eastern Europe.
The idea will for the branch to improve dealflow for NIF portfolio companies — creating more procurement pipelines and overall business development. And it will potentially also boost dealflow for itself: armed with a €1 billion+ fund, NIF is looking for more startups to add to its portfolio.
Jan Duthel will be leading the operation, and he and his team will “work directly with the region’s deep tech founders, investors, government and industry partners, as well as the defence and security community,” NIF said.
NIF already is an LP in two Polish funds, Expeditions and OTB Ventures. We have reached out to ask about startups from the region in its portfolio.
Poland is not the biggest defence market in Europe in terms of overall value, but as a country it spends more proportionate to its GDP than any other nation within NATO. It’s also a very strategic country along the Eastern Flank: a direct neighbour to Ukraine and very much in the crosshairs of Russia’s ‘grey zone’ warfare manoeuvres.
NIF’s move to build out a branch in Warsaw also comes at a critical time in defence and resilience tech.
As we noted in our recent report on defence tech fundraising, resilience technology startups in Europe (and elsewhere) are raising record amounts of money at the moment, on track to see $10.6 billion in funding this year. But while there has been a lot of talk about the urgent need to modernise militaries and to re-arm Europe, actual procurement has been lagging behind.
Trying to address that is one reason why NIF brought on Ari Jónsson as NIF’s first president, to build more adoption pipelines; and it is also some of the logic behind setting up a branch now in Poland.
On the side of Poland, it gives the country some gravity as a central cog in the wider defence posture of the region.
“The NATO Innovation Fund’s decision to establish a permanent presence in Warsaw is a significant vote of confidence in Poland’s economy and its innovation ecosystem,” said Minister of Finance and Economy Andrzej Domański, in a statement. “The NATO Innovation Fund is the first major fund, not originating from Poland, to establish a substantial presence in our country, and this reflects the strength of our growth, our deep tech talent, and our ambition to be a leading hub for dual-use innovation in the region.”
