Inside Helsing's push to become the continent's answer to Anduril — and why Berlin is betting on it.
Helsing was founded in 2021 on a wager that Europe's defence establishment would eventually need a domestic alternative to Silicon Valley-funded autonomy platforms. Four years and a Series D later, that wager looks increasingly well-timed.
The company has built its position not on a single hardware platform but on a software layer — AI models for perception, electronic warfare and coordination that can be deployed across a range of partner hardware.
This summer, the US Navy awarded $76.6 billion in submarine contracts. Lockheed Martin agreed a seven-year plan to more than triple PAC-3 missile production. The headlines called it a spending story. It isn't. In both cases, demand was never the constraint, industrial capacity was. Welders, dry docks, and assembly lines take years to build, and no amount of new orders changes that overnight. The real question for investors: which companies can actually convert backlog into throughput, and when will that show up in margins?
20 Sept 2026 · 6 min
A decade of venture-funded autonomy research is colliding with a rearmament cycle.
19 Aug 2026 · 12 min
Field trials suggest autonomy is now doctrine, not demonstration.
16 Aug 2026 · 6 min