German DefenceTech startup Helsing has raised €450M in a Series C financing round led by General Catalyst, planning to make Estonia a focus point of its future expansion.
The deal was announced during the NATO annual summit in Washington, D.C. Plural Platform, a VC firm co-created in Tallinn by Taavet Hinrikus (co-founder of Wise) and Sten Tamkivi (Skype’s early executive), also participated in the round.
Helsing develops AI software to enhance defence systems to boost the capabilities of weapons used in drones and jet fighters and improve decision-making on the battlefield.
The company, which is now valued at over €5B, has decided to increase its presence in the Baltics, spending over €70M in the region in the next three years. This was announced during the summit by Helsing executives and Kaja Kallas, the Prime Minister of Estonia. To execute the plans, Helsing has already opened an entity in Estonia called Helsing Estonia OÜ. You can do, too — with e-Residenecy and advanced e-gov services, it takes just 15 minutes for anyone to open a business in Estonia.
Helsing Co-founder and Co-CEO Dr. Gundbert Scherf and Kaja Kallas
“We’re a company founded on European values and defending European interests and democracies, and right that now is happening in Ukraine,” said Gundbert Scherf, Helsing’s co-chief executive officer.
“But of course, it’s also happening on our eastern flank, all the way from Finland, through the Baltics, down to Poland … Estonia is a country that’s obviously also a leader in technology, and the prime minister there has a high conviction in protecting European democracies. So it was a natural starting point.”
“Working together on defending democracies is crucial, especially in this time and place,” wrote Sten Tamkivi, partner at Plural Platform.
Estonia, a strong hub of DefenceTech expertise in cybersecurity, drones and autonomous things among many other niches, already hosts NATO DIANA Regional Hub in Tallinn, and has created a government-backed €50M defence investment fund. Defence59, its flagship DefenceTech event, gathers major local and global innovators.
So far, Helsing has won deals with Airbus SE and defence ministries in Germany and Ukraine, including the German Eurofighter Electronic Warfare upgrade (with strategic investor and committed partner Saab AB), the AI infrastructure for the Future Combat Air System (FCAS, with consortium HIS) and several classified contracts in the maritime and land domains, the company said in a statement.
Currently, Helsing has offices in Munich (HQ), London, and Paris. The company stated that the new funding will be used to develop its AI capabilities and expand its workforce from the current 300 employees. “European security is at a crossroads,” and “speed is of the essence. This new funding round allows us to further up the tempo and invest in large-scale R&D and capabilities across all domains,” Helsing’s three founders, Niklas Köhler, Torsten Reil and Gundbert Scherf, said in a statement.
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