NATO backs its first cohort of European dual-use startups

With both Vice President J.D. Vance and U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth making loud noises Friday about Europe stepping up to the plate in spending more on its own defense, it might come as a surprise that Europe is already on the path toward far greater investment in defense, especially in tech.

Not only has investment into “Defense, Resilience, and Security” (DSR) tech reached an all-time high of 10% of all VC funding in Europe, but the U.K. and NATO have now stepped up this week with the launch of the first NATO-approved cohort of startups under its Defense Innovation Accelerator for the North Atlantic (DIANA) program, in partnership with the U.K. 

DIANA brings in new technologies from startups for NATO countries and includes a network of 23 affiliated accelerator sites and 182 test centers. It’s designed to connect defense personnel, startups, and defense “prime” contractors.  

The U.K.’s Defense and Security Accelerator (DASA) is leading the U.K. front, in partnership with the IoT Tribe , which in turn heads the Janus Consortium on dual-use technologies. This also includes Atmos VC, a deep tech investor, and the SETsquared Partnership (a collaboration between six research-led UK universities and a range of partners from the defense industry). The “Janus” moniker comes from the Roman god of duality, reflecting the dual-use nature of both civilian and defense tech that will emerge from the program. 

The first cohort of five startups has now been selected for a six-month program with DASA. The companies are spread across AI, electronics, semiconductors, and materials science, and were selected from 2,400 applications. 

Over a call with TechCrunch, Tanya Suarez, CEO of IOT Tribe, said 74 companies were selected and taken forward, with five going through the accelerator in London. 

“With DASA, we run competitions for U.K. defense, and we’ve bought extra capacity within this system to put our own companies through as well,” she said. “The cohorts that are going through at the moment answer the call for surveillance and sensing. So we’re looking at technologies that could be used to essentially monitor either people or equipment.”

“We have really close links to our customers across defense, plus we get a really great sense of the problems and the challenges that they’re trying to overcome,” she added. 

“Through DASA’s partnership with NATO DIANA, we’re fast-tracking the development of dual-use technologies … that will benefit both military and civilian applications across the Alliance.”

The startups selected are: 

• AI Verse (France) “An artificial intelligence (AI) company addressing the challenges surrounding accessibility, quality, privacy, accuracy, and labelling of images for training computer vision models.”
• EIFys (Finland) “Founded by university researchers, the company aims to commercialise induced junction black silicon photodiodes.” 
• Metahelios (U.K.) “Company building imaging technologies for industries through a nanotechnological approach.” 
• RVmagnetics (Slovakia) “A high-technology company in the field of sensors and identification technologies based on microwaves.” 
• Winse Power (Finland) “A company developing Optal links, a solution for delivering power and data with light, with applications in the sensing and surveillance fields.”

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