Helsing raises $1.8B at $18B valuation
German defense-AI firm Helsing closed a $1.8B round at an $18B valuation, backed by JPMorgan, Lightspeed, and Iconiq, as Europe's answer to Anduril.
Helsing, the German defense-AI company, closed a $1.8 billion round on July 13 at an $18 billion valuation, up from about €12 billion after its Series D last June. No single investor led the round. New and existing backers named by the company include JPMorgan Chase, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Iconiq, and Goldman Sachs Alternatives, alongside Dragoneer, General Catalyst, and Prima Materia, the fund of Spotify co-founder and Helsing co-chairman Daniel Ek. Helsing said demand exceeded the capital on offer.
Helsing builds autonomous drones, underwater systems, and AI software for military customers, including Centaur, a reinforcement-learning system for autonomous flight already tested on fighter jets, and the HX-2 Fathom strike drone. It runs factories in the UK and Germany, with a third under construction, and recently acquired aircraft maker Grob.
Helsing is routinely described as Europe’s answer to Anduril, the US defense-tech company whose valuation hit $61 billion after a $5 billion raise this past May, more than three times Helsing’s new mark. Both are pitching software-defined weapons platforms to governments rebuilding defense budgets, though Helsing’s investor base and customer list stay mostly European.
What it means for you
Watching defense AI through Anduril alone misses half the picture. Europe is funding its own version at real scale, with a similar bet that software and autonomy, not just hardware, decide the next generation of weapons contracts. The disputes over what guardrails AI vendors keep on lethal systems, already public in the US, are coming for European suppliers next.