201 Ventures plans second European defence fund as geopolitical tensions fuel AI and autonomy investments
Eric Slesinger, a former CIA officer, is raising a second defence-tech fund through 201 Ventures just a year after closing his first $22 million fund dedicated to European defence and dual-use startups. Sources familiar with the fundraise tell Sifted the new fund is in active discussions with investors, signaling accelerating capital flow into European security tech amid geopolitical uncertainty.
The original 201 Ventures fund, backed by the NATO Innovation Fund and other strategic allocators, has deployed into eight early-stage companies focused on gray-zone competition technologies: Arctic autonomous systems, maritime surveillance, hypersonics, and AI for battlefield use. Notable portfolio companies include Helsing (valued at $5B+, AI for battlefields) and Delian Alliance Industries (autonomous threat detection). The second fund signals confidence that European defence tech—long culturally taboo in European VC—is now mainstream.
For infra architects: European governments are no longer treating defence tech as 'uncouth' investment category. The inflection point is NATO solidarity + sovereign capability concerns post-Ukraine. Unlike Silicon Valley's consumer AI focus, European capital is flowing toward ruggedized autonomy, sensors, and hardened inference at the edge. Delian's surveillance towers and Helsing's battlefield AI represent workloads that don't run on typical cloud infrastructure.
Sources
- Primary source
- nif.fund
“The NATO Innovation Fund has invested in 201 Ventures, a $22M first fund, managed by solo General Partner Eric Slesinger”
- techcrunch.com
“Helsing, which is developing AI for use on battlefields and is currently valued at more than $5 billion by its investors”
- jobandnetwork.com
“201 Ventures focuses on technologies addressing gray zone competition, which Slesinger believes is 'happening at scale in Europe, and it will for the next couple of decades'”