Helsing, a defence AI startup backed by Spotify founder Daniel Ek which had previously raised €102.5 million, has pulled in another €209 million in a Series B funding round led by General Catalyst. Swedish heavy industry and defense group Saab is joining as a strategic investor, deepening what was previously an existing partnership.
The investment could potentially make Helsing the largest European AI company and also the largest European defence tech unicorn.
It was back in 2021 that Ek was following through on his pledge to put €1 billion of his personal fortune toward funding deep tech ‘moonshot projects’, using Prima Materia, his investment company, to back Helsing with €100 million. Its AI platform claims to be able to boost defence and national security, specifically for liberal democracies, by making them more efficient, using live data.
To date, Helsing has expanded in Europe by working closely with governments. In June this year, the German government selected Helsing and Saab to provide AI-enabled electronic warfare capabilities for the Eurofighter jet fighter. And this month, Helsing and its consortium partners won the contract to provide the AI backbone for the Future Combat Air System (FCAS) program.
The company has also — not unexpectedly — been active in Ukraine since 2022.
Torsten Reil, Co-Founder of Helsing, in a statement, “this funding round is a vote of confidence in Europe. General Catalyst’s commitment to global and European resilience is a perfect fit with our mission to help protect our democracies.”
Gundbert Scherf, Co-Founder of Helsing, said, “we founded Helsing because we believe that AI will be essential so that democracies can continue to defend their values. Our recent traction shows that this belief is shared by governments and industry.”
Source: TechCrunch
