Defense AI company Helsing announced that it has raised €209 million in a Series B funding round led by General Catalyst. Saab also joined the round as a strategic investor, deepening the existing partnership. This funding round follows the company’s previous Series A (€102.5 million) led by Prima Materia, an investment company founded by Daniel Ek, co-founder and CEO of Spotify. And Helsing plans to use the new funding round to further grow its businesses in France, Germany and the UK and deepen its investments in its core technology initiatives.
Launched in 2021, Helsing is a new type of defense company as they are developing AI-based capabilities to protect our democracies. And Helsing’s software-only approach and deep partnerships in the industry have led to rapid market adoption across Europe. In June, the German government selected Helsing and its partner Saab to provide the new AI-enabled electronic warfare capabilities for the upcoming update of the Eurofighter. And then in August, Helsing and its consortium partners won the contract to provide the AI backbone for the Future Combat Air System (FCAS) program.
Along with building commercial traction, Helsing has been active in Ukraine since 2022, providing capabilities and technology for frontline operations, with personnel deployed on an ongoing basis.
Helsing’s goal to protect democracies places special responsibility on the ethical consideration of new technologies. And the company takes an intentional approach to transparency, explainability and the effectiveness of the human in the loop. To offer technical excellence and diversity of thought, Helsing recruits from a wide range of backgrounds and encourages critical input and thinking from its teams.
KEY QUOTES:
“This funding round is a vote of confidence in Europe. General Catalyst’s commitment to global and European resilience is a perfect fit with our mission to help protect our democracies.”
– Torsten Reil, co-founder of Helsing
“We founded Helsing because we believe that AI will be essential so that democracies can continue to defend their values. Our recent traction shows that this belief is shared by governments and industry. This funding round is further validation from a global top investor as well as leading prime and trusted partner Saab.”
– Gundbert Scherf, co-founder of Helsing
“We believe Helsing is a category-defining software company that is fully aligned with our global resilience thesis – the need to modernise our most critical industries for today’s new world order.”
“Helsing’s incredible team, radical collaboration with defense contractors and governments, and deep commitment to responsible innovation are in our view totally unique. The global defence industry urgently needs to adopt AI and to do so responsibly. GC has had the privilege to be early investors in some of the best American defense technology companies and now we are proud to support what we think is the leading European defense company.”
– Paul Kwan, Managing Partner, General Catalyst
“This investment is based on the foundation of a deep cooperation agreement between our companies. Helsing’s leadership within defence AI will further improve efficiency, system capabilities and performance across Saab’s already world-leading product portfolio.”
– Micael Johansson, President and CEO of Saab
“This investment from General Catalyst and investment and strategic partnership with Saab Defence reaffirms Helsing as the primary AI platform partner out of Europe. I continue to be impressed by Helsing’s leading capabilities in building dynamic AI systems and continue to be confident in the team’s ethical, transparent and responsible approach to securing free societies for future generations globally.”
– Daniel Ek, co-chairman of Helsing
