How countries defend themselves has fundamentally changed in today’s global geopolitical environment as technology has leveled the playing field. Perhaps the most vital factor in any country’s defense is how it uses artificial intelligence to inform command decisions, gather support from allies, and enable rapid responses.
In this new environment, democracies must continue to build credible, strong, and resilient defenses that can deter threats and create opportunities for peace through diplomacy. They must spend more on modernizing their defense technology, while enhancing their ability to analyze vast amounts of data and share information in real-time.
Companies like Helsing are leading the way, and Lightspeed is honored to support the next stage of their evolution by announcing our investment in the €450M Series C round.
Helsing’s technology could not have arrived at a more crucial time. Helsing is the partner that Europe’s democracies have been looking for to future-proof their defenses. The three-year-old company is already becoming a major defense contractor for Europe, and its growth is accelerating.
Helsing’s AI-enabled software has been embedded in the next-generation Eurofighter Typhoon and forms the AI backbone for the Future Combat Air Systems (FCAS), allowing diverse military units to collaborate using a common interface and shared workflows. And in June 2024, the company announced Project Centaur, a large-scale initiative to develop autonomous capabilities for advanced air combat programs across Europe.
Modern defense requires high-speed AI-based systems
As modern defense becomes increasingly complex, where one needs to corroborate information across sensors, devices and locations to create a coherent strategy, it’s humanly impossible to do it effectively. What is a common reality in business today – interconnected networks that exchange data at high velocity and enormous volumes – is not yet a reality in the defense world.
What’s required in today’s modern age is intelligent software systems that can ingest and analyze data from multiple sources and identify optimal responses, supported at each stage by humans in the loop. The new requirements can only be met through intelligent hard- and software-integrated systems. These complex systems can ingest and fuse data across different sources, and identify the most optimal response. And Helsing is the partner the industry is looking for to collaboratively future-proof in just this way.
Lightspeed has an extensive history of investing in frontier tech globally for over a decade, including Anduril, Dexterity, Nest, Quantumscape, RobCo, Saronic, Skild, Ultima Genomics and more as we’ve built a portfolio of close to 50 companies across the sector with $915 million invested to date. Helsing is a very special company that is building AI based foundational technology at the forefront of military modernization that is so critical for democratic Europe.
We believe Helsing’s core founders – Torsten Reil, Niklas Köhler, and Dr. Gundbert Scherf – have put together the right team, strategy, partnerships, company structure, ethics board, and deep investor syndicate to be a major contributor to the defense of Europe, as well as to the resiliency of democracy the world over. We look forward to supporting them on their journey.
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