Helsing raises $1.8 billion at an $18 billion valuation in Europe's largest defense-tech round

Helsing, the Munich defense-software company, said Monday it raised $1.8 billion in a Series E round that values it at $18 billion. That is the largest round a European defense-technology startup has ever closed, and it roughly doubles the €12 billion valuation Helsing carried after a raise in mid-2025.

The backer list is long and mostly financial rather than strategic: Dragoneer Investment Group, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Disruptive, Iconiq, the growth-equity arm of Goldman Sachs Alternatives, JPMorganChase, the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, General Catalyst, Plural, and Stepstone. Existing investors Prima Materia (the firm of Spotify's Daniel Ek), Accel, and Greenoaks were already on the cap table. Helsing said demand "significantly" exceeded the allocation and that it stays predominantly European-owned. The board is unchanged, co-chaired by Ek and former Airbus chief Tom Enders.

What the $18 billion is buying

Founded in 2021, Helsing began as a software company and still describes itself as one. Its core product is Altra, battlefield-management software that fuses sensor feeds (drones, radar, satellites, cameras) into a single real-time picture an operator can act on. That is the part of the business with a track record. Helsing has integration work with Rheinmetall, Kongsberg, and Saab, and last year it put its AI in charge of a Saab Gripen fighter during a flight test.

The hardware is newer. The HX-2 is an electric strike drone Helsing says it can build at scale, and it has a manufacturing tie-up with the explosives maker EURENCO to supply European forces. The company is also standing up what it calls resilience factories. A day after the raise, it named West Virginia as the site of its first U.S. plant.

Then there is the CA-1 Europa, pitched as an autonomous fighter jet. It does not exist yet. It is a concept, and worth separating from the shipping products when you read the valuation. A good share of the $18 billion is a bet on capabilities Helsing has described but not delivered.

Why the number keeps climbing

Helsing is less an outlier than the largest instance of a pattern. European governments are raising defense budgets, and defense tech has been one of the fastest-growing areas of venture funding on the continent. In the same stretch, German drone maker Quantum Systems raised $1.2 billion at an $8 billion valuation, the UK's Kraken Technology raised $175 million at $1 billion, Germany's Stark took €500 million, Finland's ICEYE raised €450 million, and France's Harmattan AI became that country's first defense unicorn. The money is chasing the category, and Helsing has collected the most of it.

What the raise does not settle is whether Helsing can turn software contracts and drone orders into revenue that supports an $18 billion price. Investor demand measures appetite, not delivery. The company now has the capital and a few years to show the two line up.