Welcome back to the #21 edition of The New Defense Post!
In this edition, we’ll cover:
In the Hot Seat: We interviewed Guillaume Lerouge, a Paris-based defense-tech investor and partner at Hexa, being one of the earliest backers of Harmattan AI, France’s first defense-tech unicorn, and Alta Ares.
Spotlights: Dassault Aviation Is Leading a $200M Series B Into Paris-Based Harmattan AI, Valuing the Defense AI Startup at $1.4bn; Kratos Has Opened a 55,000 Sq ft Hypersonics Manufacturing and Payload Integration Facility in the US; The UK Government Is Expanding the Remit of Its Regulatory Innovation Office (RIO) to Cover Robotics and Defense
Fundraising News of the Week: Recent fundraises highlight strong momentum in defense and AI, with significant rounds backing AI pilots, defense-focused VC, military planning software, and secure military software delivery.
Bonus Section: We will look into battle management software and some examples of European startups in this space.
In the Hot Seat
Photo Credit: Guillaume Lerouge
We interviewed Guillaume Lerouge, a Paris-based defense-tech investor and a partner at Hexa. He is known for backing Harmattan AI, France’s first defense-tech unicorn, and Alta Ares at their earliest stages.
Europe’s defense technology ecosystem has shifted from niche to mainstream in just a few years. Once dominated by large incumbents, the sector is now seeing a new generation of software-driven, capital-efficient startups that are increasingly venture-backed.
In this interview, Guillaume explains why he started investing before defense tech became fashionable, how deal flow really works in the sector, which areas remain underfunded, and what red flags make him walk away from a startup.
Spotlights
1. Dassault Aviation Is Leading a $200M Series B Into Paris Based Harmattan AI, Valuing the Defense AI Startup at $1.4bn
Photo Credit: Harmattan AI
Dassault Aviation is leading a $200m Series B into Paris-based Harmattan AI, valuing the defense AI startup at $1.4bn, and tying the investment to a strategic partnership on future air combat.
The companies say the goal is to develop embedded AI capabilities for Dassault’s next-generation systems, especially control of unmanned aerial systems that will operate alongside platforms like the Rafale F5 (targeted for around 2030).
Harmattan, founded last year, is positioning itself as a vertically integrated autonomy player across strike and surveillance drones, mission systems, and broader autonomous defense platforms, riding the shift toward AI augmented systems accelerated by Ukraine and Europe’s push for strategic autonomy. (Reuters).
🗣 Emmanuel Macron, President of France: “This is excellent news for our strategic autonomy, for the technological superiority of our military in the area of AI-enabled defense drones as well as for our economy.” (Reuters)
📰 Our Take: France was once a sleeping military giant; now it appears to have awakened. Harmattan’s growth has been explosive: in just over one year, it went from an interesting concept to a unicorn. And we can expect many new and interesting companies to emerge from France.
The French army has long focused on strategic independence while strongly promoting the export of its defense technology. This approach now extends to new defense startups as well, creating a unique environment for them to grow and scale.
2. Kratos Has Opened a 55,000 Sq Ft Hypersonics Manufacturing and Payload Integration Facility in the US
Photo Credit: Kratos
Kratos has opened a 55,000 sq ft hypersonic manufacturing and payload integration facility in Princess Anne, Maryland, to increase production capacity and accelerate payload integration for U.S. hypersonic test programs.
The facility is positioned to support MACH-TB 2.0 and other customers across the Navy, Air Force, DARPA, and the Missile Defense Agency, with Kratos highlighting proximity to NASA Wallops as a logistics advantage.
The company frames the site as a direct enabler of higher test cadence and lower-cost flight testing, tying it to its $1.4bn MACH-TB 2.0 contract and broader efforts to scale U.S. hypersonic testing infrastructure. (Globe Newswire)
🗣 Dave Carter, President, Kratos Defense & Rocket Support Services: “The Princess Anne facility will play a crucial role in supporting our $1.4 billion MACH-TB 2.0 contract… enabling increased test cadence and more affordable flight test opportunities for hypersonic technologies.” (Globe Newswire)
📰 Our Take: This is a reminder that hypersonics is not just a “missile race”; it’s a manufacturing and test infrastructure race. The winners will be the players who can industrialize quickly: integrate payloads faster, run more tests per year, and drive down the cost per flight so iteration becomes routine rather than exceptional. The U.S. is clearly investing in that throughput.
On the other side of the Atlantic, Europe is home to companies like Destinus, which are developing hypersonic and drone technologies, some of which have already reached the Ukrainian frontline.
3. The UK Government Is Expanding the Remit of Its Regulatory Innovation Office (RIO) to Cover Robotics and Defense
Photo Credit: UK GOV
The UK government is expanding the remit of its Regulatory Innovation Office (RIO) to cover robotics and defense, aiming to review and cut regulation that is outdated, duplicative, or slows emerging tech from reaching the market.
RIO says it has already spoken with 150+ businesses and is working on reforms across sectors worth £100bn+, building on earlier work with the Civil Aviation Authority to simplify drone flight approvals.
Alongside the regulatory work, the government is launching a £52m competition to create around five Robotics Adoption Hubs, expected to go live in H2 2026, with hubs receiving £2m+ per year for four years. (Business Cloud)
🗣 Liz Lloyd, Minister for the Digital Economy: “British innovators shouldn’t be held back by needless red tape… We’re updating the rules so they work for modern technologies.” (Business Cloud)
📰 Our Take: This is a big deal for UK and European defense startups because regulation is quietly one of the biggest “time taxes” on dual-use scaling. If the UK can streamline approvals across airspace, data, and safety compliance, it shortens the path from prototype to real deployment, which is exactly what investors and operators want.
Other News
DHS announced a new office to advance drone and counter-drone efforts, including mentions of significant counter-drone investment tied to major upcoming events. (Homeland Security)
A new $100M “challenge” aims to accelerate capabilities around drone swarms and AI-enabled concepts. (Defense One)
Another 340 companies/schools were approved to bid on work under the “Golden Dome” missile defense contract vehicle (reported value pool up to $151B). (Defense One)
Bloomberg reports DTCP is preparing a €500M defense-focused fund aimed at European digital defense infrastructure and startups. (Bloomberg)
Commission approves early national plans under a new €150B loan scheme. Eight EU member states had their plans greenlit to use allocations from the EU’s new €150B defense-loan scheme (part of a broader readiness package). (EU)
Germany placed an order for eight MQ-9B SeaGuardian systems to support maritime patrol missions. (Breaking Defense)
The U.S. Army signed an agreement with the UK establishing ground rules for drone/counter-drone intelligence sharing, framed as the first of more allied arrangements. (Breaking Defense)
Thales says it secured a major Royal Navy MCM contract centered on AI-powered remote command centres, accelerating the RN’s shift toward autonomous, remote-managed MCM operations. (Thales Group)
Reuters reports a bilateral agreement that explicitly mentions a joint “cyber dome,” an AI/cyber innovation center, work on drone defense, and protecting critical infrastructure. (Reuters)
Fundraising News
Amount | Name | Round | Category |
|---|---|---|---|
$200mn | AI Pilot | ||
€500mn | Defense Focused Fund | ||
$200mn | Military Planning Software | ||
$136mn | Secure Software Delivery for Military Systems |
Bonus Section — Battle Management Software
Photo Credit: Intelic AI
Modern battlefields generate more data than any commander can process.
Drones stream video, radars track movement, ground sensors detect threats, and legacy systems produce their own feeds. The problem is no longer a lack of information. It is making sense of what is already there. A new generation of startups is building software to fuse these data streams into a single operational picture and help commanders make faster decisions.
The need became acute in Ukraine. Western militaries ramped up their use of unmanned systems, but more hardware meant more sensors, more data, and more fragmentation. Existing command-and-control systems, often decades old, were not designed to integrate commercial drones, open-source intelligence, and real-time battlefield feeds into one coherent view. That gap is now a market.
Intelic, a European defense-tech company founded in 2021, builds command-and-control software that integrates with battlefield management systems like ATAK and Delta. Its platform can control drones, ground vehicles, and surface vessels from a single interface while feeding threat maps and sensor data into the planning loop.
CEO Maurits Korthals Altes argues that in Europe's fragmented market, horizontal software layers that connect multiple vendors will prove more resilient than vertically integrated systems. We recently interviewed Maurits for The New Defense Post. You can find the interview here.
Project Q, a Berlin-based startup founded in 2024, focuses on sensor fusion. Its Q-OSP platform connects radars, cameras, acoustic sensors, and legacy infrastructure into a unified situational awareness picture. The company calls this the "Internet of Defense": an open architecture that lets disparate systems communicate in real time. Project Q raised €7.5 million in seed funding in mid-2025 and already counts the German Armed Forces as an early customer.
Comand AI, founded in Paris in 2023, takes a different angle: tactical planning. Its Prevail platform uses AI simulations and reinforcement learning to help officers generate mission plans in minutes rather than hours. The software synthesizes terrain data, enemy positions, doctrine, and lessons learned from past operations. Comand AI has raised €11.5 million so far and is expanding across NATO countries.
The common thread here is software that turns battlefield complexity into clarity. As sensors multiply and decision cycles compress, the value of this layer will only grow.
Love these insights? Forward this newsletter to a friend or two. They can subscribe to our website.