Welcome back to the thirteenth edition of The New Defense Post!
Happy to have you here as always!
In this edition, we’ll cover:
In the Hot Seat: We sat down with Joakim Sjöblom, the founder of SWEBAL and former founder of Minna Technologies, to discuss the European TNT shortage, the challenge of transitioning from fintech to defense manufacturing, and why Sweden produces so many unicorns.
Spotlights: US Sets Six Critical Priorities for Future Military Tech; Germany Launches Its First Military Space Strategy With a €35bn Investment Plan; French and Ukrainian Drone Makers Court Co-Production Deals and Funding.
Fundraising News of the Week: NestAI raised €100mn for physical AI, Ursa Major secured a $100mn Series E for hypersonic rocket propulsion, Rift closed a €4.6mn seed for its on-demand aerial reconnaissance network, and Keen Venture Partners launched a €150mn defense tech fund.
Bonus Section: We’ll look at space as the battlefield of the future.
In the Hot Seat
Photo Credit: Joakim Sjöblom
Europe faces a critical bottleneck in its rearmament efforts: high explosives.
While Western militaries possess sophisticated delivery systems, fighter jets, submarines, and smart missiles, Europe lacks the ability to produce TNT at sufficient volume. Russia currently outpaces European TNT production by a large margin, creating a dangerous reliance on imports.
We sat down with Joakim Sjöblom, the founder of SWEBAL and former founder of Minna Technologies, to discuss the European TNT shortage, the challenge of transitioning from fintech to defense manufacturing, and why Sweden produces so many unicorns.
Spotlights
1. US Sets Six Critical Priorities for Future Military Tech
Photo Credit: US Army
The US Department of Defense is concentrating its R&D firepower on six “Critical Technology Areas”: AI applications, biomanufacturing, contested logistics, quantum/battlefield information dominance, directed energy, and scaled hypersonics.
The push is about hardening comms and sensing in contested environments, making resupply more resilient with predictive and autonomous logistics, and accelerating deployment of hypersonic and directed-energy systems that promise faster, cheaper response options than many legacy weapons.
🗣 Emil Michael, Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering: “These six areas are central to delivering actionable results to our forces and maintaining our operational edge.” (The Defense Post)
📰 Our Take: The gargantuan US military is moving in the right direction, and when they start to move, they are usually hard to stop. What is crucial, however, is not only building the technology but also developing the manufacturing capacity that will allow systems to be delivered at scale.
For now, this is great news for the many defense tech startups working across these six verticals.
2. Germany Launches Its First Military Space Strategy With a €35bn Investment Plan
Photo Credit: German Space Agency
Germany has signed off on its first national space strategy and plans to invest about €35bn in military space capabilities by 2030, as part of a wider €650bn defence build-up aimed at countering Russian and Chinese activity in orbit.
Berlin wants to detect and deter threats in space, from GPS jamming in the Baltic region to hostile manoeuvres against satellites.
The plan includes building German-owned satellite constellations, ground stations, and launch options, alongside more assertive tools such as jamming systems and “inspector” satellites—raising questions about how closely it will integrate with EU programmes like IRIS².
🗣 Boris Pistorius, German defence minister: “A failure or disruption would have serious consequences for our security and our everyday lives.” (Euronews)
📰 Our Take: This is amazing news for German aerospace companies such as Isar Aerospace. Defense in space is often overlooked and considered a monopoly of large superpowers. But now everything is changing: the cost of bringing payloads to orbit has been dropping continuously, and even mid-sized powers can now afford a serious defense-related space presence.
From a European perspective, this push could finally provide the right amount of stimulus for European space-tech startups to catch up with their US counterparts.
3. French and Ukrainian Drone Makers Court Co-Production Deals and Funding
French and Ukrainian drone makers are racing to lock in co-production deals and financing by year-end, as Paris scrambles to catch up in Europe’s fast-moving drone war economy.
France has lagged in battlefield drones, so officials are pushing “weeks or months” timelines for joint production lines in Ukraine or France, tapping Ukrainian frontline engineering and combat data to iterate systems faster.
Players like Delair, Alta Ares, Parrot, and EOS Technologie are exploring deals ranging from interceptor drones (capable of downing Shaheds) to kamikaze and surveillance platforms, with Renault even nudged to consider drone manufacturing.
🗣 Senior French Diplomatic Source: “French firms have lagged behind so we’re really working on the very short term - that is, co-production channels in Ukraine or in France that could be set up in the coming weeks or months, which would benefit from the Ukrainians’ very strong engineering expertise on the subject and could yield tangible results fairly quickly,” (Reuters)
📰 Our Take: If Paris can align capital, IP rules, and industrial policy quickly, this Franco-Ukrainian corridor could become one of Europe’s most important drone innovation hubs.
The push in France, both from the military and startup sectors, is to accelerate innovation and adopt new technologies in defense. It’s an interesting combination, and we can expect to see more promising defense-tech startups emerging from France.
Other News
EU unveils a defence-innovation and military-mobility roadmap to speed advanced tech into service (European Commission)
US Army runs “Project Flytrap 4.5” counter-drone trials with NATO allies in Germany (Stars and Stripes)
Fundraising News
Amount | Name | Round | Category |
|---|---|---|---|
€100mn | Physical AI | ||
$100mn | Hypersonic Rocket Propulsion | ||
€4.6mn | On-Demand Aerial Reconnaissance Network | ||
€150mn | Defense Tech Fund |
Bonus Section — Star Wars
Photo Credit: Space Forces
Space has become a critical domain for modern defence, covering everything from secure communications and precision navigation to missile warning and intelligence gathering.
NATO militaries rely heavily on satellites to navigate and track forces, maintain resilient command-and-control links, and detect missile launches. These capabilities enable faster, more precise responses to crises. (NATO)
Dedicated military space organisations like the U.S. Space Force and the Space Development Agency are investing in large constellations of satellites and new doctrines for “space warfighting.” This is because control of orbital infrastructure is now integral to deterrence and global power projection.
At the same time, space is becoming more contested and vulnerable. Western officials warn that Russia and China are developing capabilities to jam, blind, or even physically attack satellites. (CSIS)
This has pushed alliances like NATO and individual states in Europe and Asia to rethink space policy, harden their space assets against cyber and kinetic threats, and seriously start to think about how to respond to these attacks.
The result is a rapid militarisation of orbit: more investment, new space commands, and an ongoing debate over how to balance national security needs with efforts at arms control and norms to prevent space from becoming an unrestrained battlefield.
Space could become the next major focus for defense tech companies. It represents a very different and advanced approach to defense innovation, but the presence of startups is fundamental. Just think of ICYE and their observation satellites.
Founders, get ready to go to space!
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