Helsing nears $1.2 billion funding round at $18 billion valuation

Helsing is close to raising $1.2 billion at about an $18 billion valuation, a deal that would cement the German startup as one of Europe’s most aggressively funded military technology companies. The round is expected to be led by Dragoneer Investment Group and co-led by Lightspeed Venture Partners, adding fresh capital to a company that only announced a €600 million Series D in June 2025.

That earlier round, led by Prima Materia, Daniel Ek’s investment firm, valued Helsing at €12 billion and was presented as a step toward European technological sovereignty. Ek said Europe needs advanced technologies that support strategic autonomy and security readiness, a message that has gained force as governments and investors move deeper into military AI, drones and other sovereignty-focused suppliers.

Founded in Munich in 2021 by Torsten Reil, Gundbert Scherf and Niklas Köhler, Helsing has tried to define itself not just as a weapons maker but as a company building defense technology with ethics at the core. Its pitch spans software and hardware, including AI-enabled strike drones and an underwater surveillance system, reflecting a broader shift from code to battlefield-ready systems.

The clearest sign of that shift came in February 2025, when Helsing said it would produce 6,000 HX-2 strike drones for Ukraine after a previous order of 4,000 HF-1 strike drones delivered in partnership with Ukrainian industry. Helsing describes the HX-2 as an electrically propelled X-wing precision munition with a range of up to 100 km, and says onboard AI helps it resist electronic warfare. The company said the new order made it one of the largest strike-drone manufacturers globally.

The fundraising push comes as Europe’s defense-tech market is being reshaped by wartime demand and a growing sense that the continent cannot rely entirely on legacy contractors. For venture capital, that has opened the door to a different kind of scale: not consumer apps or enterprise software, but companies that can turn battlefield urgency into repeat procurement, industrial capacity and long-term state demand. Helsing’s rapid rise shows how far that thesis has already traveled.