Welcome back to the second edition of The New Defense Post!
Thank you for all the support and feedback on our first issue — your ideas help us make this newsletter more useful and relevant for you.
In this edition, we’ll cover:
In the Hot Seat: Dimitrios Kottas, Co-Founder & CEO of Delian Alliance Industries, on why he made the leap to defense tech before it was fashionable, what he has learned about building and fundraising into defense, and his advice for the next wave of European founders.
Spotlights: EU chief Ursula von der Leyen’s plane hit by suspected Russian GPS jamming; ARX Robotics unveils its first combat-capable UGV; the EU’s €150bn loans-for-arms programme is oversubscribed.
Fundraising News of the Week: Lakestar raises a continuation fund and Blue Water Autonomy raises a Series A.
Bonus Section: We’ll examine the current European push into underwater security systems.
In the Hot Seat
Delian’s coastal surveillance system. Photo Credit: Delian Alliance Industries
We sat down with Dimitrios Kottas, a former Apple engineer and the Co-Founder and CEO of Delian Alliance Industries.
The company builds autonomous Anti-Access/Area Denial (A2/AD) systems that connect “any sensor to any effector” to detect and neutralize threats across land, sea, and air—spanning surveillance towers, electronic-warfare modules, navigation, command-and-control, and its Interceptigon one-way aerial and surface drones for coastal defense.
We discussed why he made the leap to defense tech before it was fashionable, what he has learned about building and fundraising into defense, and his advice for the next wave of European founders. Read the full interview on The New Defense Post
Spotlights
1. EU Chief Von Der Leyen’s Plane Hit by Suspected Russian GPS Jamming
Photo Credit: DPA/TASS
GPS/navigation aids were cut out mid-flight; the crew circled for ~1 hour, then landed using analog maps.
Bulgarian Air Traffic Services and the European Commission confirmed GPS jamming; the Kremlin denied it (but the evidence is quite clear).
Jamming/spoofing incidents have risen since 2022, especially on the EU’s eastern flank; 13 member states flagged the issue to the Commission.
🗣 European Commission Spokesperson: “Generally, we have been seeing quite a lot of such jamming and spoofing activities, especially on the eastern flank. Europe is the most affected region globally on this.” (Financial Times)
📰 Our Take: This episode highlights Europe’s vulnerability to electronic warfare and is likely to intensify calls for anti-jamming and anti-spoofing measures across both civil and military aviation. Expect increased attention on alternative navigation systems and accelerated investment in resilient navigation.
Alternatives to GPS range from computer vision–based navigation (think of EDTH hackathon participant Zero Industries) to quantum sensing–based systems such as those developed by Q-CTRL.
2. Arx Robotics Unveils “Combat Gereon,” Its First Combat-Capable UGV
Combat Gereon. Photo Credit: DPA/TASS
Combat Gereon was developed, tested, and refined with continuous feedback from Ukrainian end users; the weapons integration is with Valhalla Turrets’ LOKI.
It is designed for high-risk missions such as reconnaissance, route clearance, and forward observation in contested zones.
🗣 Marc Wietfeld, Co-founder & CEO, ARX Robotics: “Combat Gereon represents the next step in our mission to protect soldiers and enhance Europe’s defence resilience… increasing survivability at the front line and enabling European forces to operate with greater effectiveness and lower risk.” (company announcement)
📰 Our Take: ARX expanding beyond support robots and into fully armed, combat-ready ground vehicles is a big step. It’s one of the rare cases where a dual-use-branded company moves so openly into combat applications without (to our knowledge) facing fierce pushback from previous investors.
3. The EU’s €150BN Loans-For-Arms Programme Is Set to Be Spent in Full After 19 Member States Requested Funding
German Leopard 2 tanks during a NATO military parade. Photo Credit: Bundeswehr
Brussels says the €150bn SAFE program is now fully subscribed, with 19 countries—including France and Poland—submitting their lists for joint purchases.
The cash is meant for what Europe needs most: air and missile defense, cyber tools, and drones. The Commission is sorting through bids now and wants the first disbursements out this year.
Expect a European focus: the scheme favours EU-made gear, and several governments say they’ll use it to both rearm at home and keep Ukraine supplied.
🗣 Ursula von der Leyen: “We have reached full subscription… We are delivering the capabilities that Europe needs most.” (European Commission)
📰 Our Take: This is a strong demand signal for Europe’s defense tech ecosystem. The big questions now: how fast the money moves, how the pie is divided, and whether industry—startups included—can scale quickly to satisfy industry requirements.
Other News
Teledyne Marine to support NATO’s unmanned maritime mega-exercise (REPMUS) in Portugal (OCEAN NEWS & TECHNOLOGY)
This Week’s Statistics
VC funding for European defence tech startups reached an all-time high of $5.2bn in 2024 (Dealroom × NATO Innovation Fund)
Fundraising News
Amount | Name | Round | Category |
|---|---|---|---|
$265mn | Deep Tech Focus (Defense Allowed) | ||
$50mn | Autonomous Ships |
Podcast Shout-Out
Worth listening to: Matthew Lombardi delivers a great interview about the Canadian defense tech space — mentions the European Defense Tech Hub around minute 17.
Bonus Section — European Underwater Security
Fathom gliders are pictured at the launch and demonstration event in Portsmouth, UK, in early May. Photo Credit: Helsing
European navies and industry are racing to secure the underwater domain as recent damage to seabed gas pipelines and telecoms cables exposes how vulnerable critical infrastructure has become.
Governments are preparing to pour billions into capabilities that defend both military assets and civilian networks, with the UK elevating undersea security in its latest defense review and the US tightening subsea cable regulations.
Traditional anti-submarine warfare—sending a few frigates and patrol aircraft after a single target—is no longer sufficient or affordable as threats expand to sabotage of cables and pipelines. The challenge now is scale: building pervasive “situational awareness” under, on, and above the sea.
That is driving investment from primes such as BAE Systems and Thales, alongside newer players like Ultra Maritime and startups including Helsing and Anduril, all eyeing NATO’s Digital Ocean Vision to merge satellites, sensors, and autonomous systems into a coherent picture.
Rapid advances in microelectronics, high-performance computing, and AI are making once-impractical concepts feasible. The UK’s MSubs is sea-trialling Excalibur, an extra-large uncrewed submarine for the Royal Navy, while Thales is pursuing Project Cabot, which would fuse data from crewed and uncrewed platforms and process it with AI for faster threat detection.
Fincantieri sees the global defense and commercial undersea market reaching €50bn annually and plans to double its underwater division by 2027. BAE is developing Herne, a modular extra-large autonomous underwater vehicle designed for long range and endurance.
On the startup side, Helsing is building a Plymouth factory for fleets of SG-1 Fathom AI gliders that promise wide-area coverage at a fraction of crewed patrol costs; Anduril, with Sonardyne and Ultra Maritime, is fielding Seabed Sentry, a network of seabed sensors paired with lightweight sonar to flag suspicious activity in real time.
Across programs, executives stress the same priority: resilient, always-on systems that can deliver trustworthy data when it matters.
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