Helsing's $1.2B Defence Round Tops DACH May 2026

Narrator: The people who seem to get more done than everyone else, they're not working longer hours or running on more caffeine. They've just stopped wasting time on the stuff that doesn't move work forward. Switching apps, re explaining context, hunting for files. Those aren't small inefficiencies. They're hours wasted every week. Superhuman Go gives you those hours back from the makers of Grammarly. Go is an AI chat that sits inside every tab and tool you already use, always available and ready to help you with what you're working on. Ask it to draft something, summarize a long thread, pull up a file, or prep you for a meeting. Go handles it without you ever leaving the page you're on. This is what it looks like when AI actually fits into your work instead of adding to it. It's like having a teammate whose only job is to help you be better at yours. Go keeps up so you can move forward. And with Go working with you, you can show off what you do best. See what Superhuman Go can do@superhuman.com that's superhuman.com.

Joe: Welcome to StartUpLead IO, your podcast and YouTube blog covering the German startup scene with news, interviews and live events.

Chris Farnbach: Hello and welcome. This is StartupRay IO. I'm Chris Farnbach joining you from New York City. Uh, with me is Joe from Frankfurt am Main. Um, hey, Joe, good to be here.

Joe: Good to have you, Chris. One more time.

Chris Farnbach: One more time. Yes, we'll talk about this a bit later. Um, before we start though, just a bit of housekeeping. Our news cut today runs from April 22 to May 18, 2026. Production date is today May18. And our episode is going to go live on May 28. This is also. Now we have it, my last episode as co host of the news. Um, we will say more about that at the end, but first there's a lot to cover.

Joe: Yes, indeed, Chris. And the thesis of the month, right, itself, I would say.

Chris Farnbach: Yeah. So, um, yeah, I mean we've talked about it in the past couple of months already, but what we really see is that the Dach ecosystem, so once again, Dach mean Deutschland, Austria, Switzerland, or GSA in English is the abbreviation that the Dach ecosystem is no longer just catching up. It is producing itself frontier outcomes. It is making great progress. We see companies like Helsing, which has just raised $1.2 billion at an $18 billion valuation, um, making it actually Germany's most valuable startup. And I think that's really interesting to again seeing how much the military, um, industry influencing startup Culture by now then we have SAP SRP committing over €1 billion to acquire an 18 month old AI lab. And as we record this ISA Aerospace once again going to um. Yeah, uh, military aerial uh industries has launch ah window open right now for its second orbital attempt.

Joe: Yeah, last time we also covered this in news but the ah launch attempt didn't work out. Um, the let's go to the macro numbers. Germany has deployed $3.67 billion across 166 rounds through May, up almost 12% year on year. German acquisitions in 2026 have hit 142 up from a little bit over 100 through April the defense budget is at 83 billion euros, projected to reach 162 almost double by 2029. Capital is moving and it's moving very fast especially considering German government.

Chris Farnbach: Yeah. And uh, I mean since it's always fun to be wrong with predictions, let's just put like three on record. Uh, number one Helsing we just talked about it is going to reach 25 billion within 12 months as A P's prior lab. Number two, um, that deal is going to trigger at least two more half billion euro corporate AI acquisitions without 18 months in the region. And number three, at least two more DACH companies will choose Frankfurt over London for their IPO by the end of 2027. I think it's all doable. Why not?

Joe: Yeah, let's get to it.

Chris Farnbach: Let's get to it. Okay, we've already teased it a bit. Um, let's talk a bit more about Helsing which is now Germany's most valuable startup. The lead signal is Helsing. It's a Munich based company founded in 2021, now raising $1.2 billion meaning they have an $18 billion valuation. Um this time around. The round is led by Dragonier Investment Group and co led by Lightspeed, which is an existing investor of the company. It was oversubscribed multiple times. Um, helsing remains roughly 80% European owned. So um, yeah as I said before there's a lot of like changing in the markets or um, it's this company definitely is part of larger trends here that we can see.

Joe: I vividly remember uh, like a few years ago 1.2 billion valuation would have made headline numbers across all of Europe and now there's a startup racing.

Chris Farnbach: Yeah. And now you have 1.2. Yeah. Now it's the it's was raised. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I mean you looked at the valuation of Helsing anyway right? So yeah, tell me about the trajectory.

Joe: Yeah, let us put the trajectory a little bit in context. In September 2024, 5.5 billion. June 2025, 12 billion. With Daniel Ek of Spotify back in the round. We actually wrote about this back then in May 2026, 8 billion. That's what they're tripling in under two years. And this is a company that makes kamikaze drones and battlefield AI software.

Chris Farnbach: Yeah, very desperately looking for kamikaze joke here, but I don't know one. So um, yeah, and also, yeah, we hear it in the news quite often how much, uh, more of a role um, drones are playing in warfare. Um, their flagship product is called uh, the HX2 drone. It's 12kg, it has 100kg kilometer range. It's AI guided as they say. It operates in GPS denied environments. Um, the Bundeswehr framework that they have. The framework contract is worth up to 1.46 billion euros. Um, and also Dragon and Lightspeed on their cap table really signals that US growth equity is now more and more committed to European sovereign defense companies.

Joe: Yes, 18 billion makes Helsing, actually Germany's most valuable startup. Taking the crown from Celil. This is the largest single uh, dach round in 2026 again meaning Germany, Austria, Switzerland and likely the largest defense tech round so far. We have been saying for three, uh, for three episodes indeed that defense procurement is creating venture at scale outcomes and that's actually proof.

Chris Farnbach: Yeah, and there's a um, there's also like a deeper structural point to this. So um, as I said Helsing, um, Will did all this while remaining majority European owned. So we see here that it is a sovereign, um, defense company having sovereign ownership. And so the fact that they attracted US growth capital here without surrendering control to some entity in the US

Narrator: um

Chris Farnbach: might be a model for other European defense startups or at least model that they will try to replicate.

Joe: Mhm. The company Prior Labs was founded fewer than 15 months ago. Before the acquisition, the company built the Tabular foundation model tfms. The TAP PFM M model series was published in Nature and the team includes researchers from Google, Apple, Amazon, Microsoft and Jane street, funded by Frank Hutte, Noah Holman and Suraj, Gambia. Sorry for butchering the last name.

Chris Farnbach: Yeah. And now on May 4, SAP announced that it will acquire the company, um, based in Freiburg and it will commit over €1 billion over four years to build what SAP is calling, um, a globally leading frontier AI lab in Europe. So um, yeah, as you said, the um, as you hinted at with uh, the details of the deal, the structure here is pretty significant. Prior Labs continues as an independent entity, um, still having offices in Freiburg, Berlin and New York. Um, SAP is not going to absorb the team into the existing R and D of SAP, but uh, building a new frontier AI lab around structured and tabular data, um, which is the type of data that runs uh, SAP's enterprise customer base. SAP always having been one of the like secret superheroes and probably yeah like the biggest IT success story in um, Germany for decades now.

Joe: And interestingly an 18 month old startup commanding a billion euro plus investment commitment, that's an extraord that's actually extraordinary by any standard. And it signals something broader. European corporate acquirers are now willing to pay frontier prices for sovereign AI capabilities. SAP is making its biggest AI bet and it's making it actually in Germany.

Chris Farnbach: Yeah, and what we are looking at now is uh, the question whether this will trigger a wave. So I mean it's not hard to predict as if SAP is spending a billion euros on AI sovereignty, that maybe other companies like Siemens, like Bosch, like BMW, um, are also wondering whether they should do the same. Um, and yeah, so there might be more big large corporate AI acquisitions within the next couple of months or um, one or two years. Moving on, as we record this, um, the launch window for ESA Aerospace's second orbital attempt is literally open. So because it's May 18th, the uh, launch window is May 18th to May 24th from Andoya Spaceport space port in Norway. Um, their Spectrum rocket is carrying five CubeSats and one experiment via the ESA Boost program, the European Space Agency, um, and headed for a sun synchronous orbit.

Narrator: The people who seem to get more done than everyone else, they're not working longer hours or running on more caffeine. They've just stopped wasting time on the stuff that doesn't move. Work forward, switching apps, re explaining context, hunting for files. Those aren't small inefficiencies, they're hours wasted every week. Superhuman Go gives you those hours back from the makers of Grammarly. Go is an AI chat that sits inside every tab and tool you already use, always available and ready to help you with what you're working on. Ask it to draft something, summarize a long thread, pull up a file or prep you for a meeting. Go handles it without you ever leaving the page you're on. This is what it looks like when AI actually fits into your work instead of adding to it. It's like having a teammate whose only job is to help you be better at yours. Go keeps up so you can move forward with GO working with you. You can show off what you do best. See what superhuman go can do@superhuman.com. that's superhuman.com

Joe: the back story. Yeah, sorry. Space is.

Chris Farnbach: Space is always good.

Joe: Yeah, the backstory matters here. The first flight in March 2025 failed roughly 30 seconds after liftoff on March 22.

Chris Farnbach: And here, and here we really have to say um, it's a very interesting thing about space we really like. If you look at it from the outside you would always think oh my God, what a failure. But actually in space, these tiny, tiny incremental improvements and having a 30 second lift off, then having like a 2 minute 30 second lift, this is what they consider a success. This is why there are so many tries.

Narrator: Mhm.

Joe: Yeah. Typical startup approach, right? Incremental. Incremental improvements. A March 2026 attempt was corrupt twice. One because of a boat in the danger zone and one because of a pressure tank leak. Ah, we talked about it. I think. ESA is seeking 250 million euros at a 2 billion euro valuation. Total raised exceeds 650 million.

Chris Farnbach: And if Spectrum reaches orbit it will also yeah, um, validate European commercial space flight or yeah like the, in general the, the standing of European Europe as um, um, an alternative to the US um and um, it almost certainly closes the 250 million euro round of the company if it fails again. The question becomes how much longer their investors will wait for um, until the like this, like very capital intensive deep tech, um, will generate some revenue.

Joe: And ESA is not the only space signal. Atmospace Cargo based in lichtenau, Germany raised 24.7 million euros in a series A Let me by Balnor and Expansion Venture Capital. They are building Phoenix 2 Orbital Return Vehicle with an inflatable atmospheric decelerator Recovery operations is in the source.

Chris Farnbach: And since we're also always giving um, some German geography classes here for free. This is um, the state, the city of Lichtenau in what I think should be Bavaria.

Joe: And the asshores are islands not in Germany, they're actually in the Atlantic Ocean when we are already at geography.

Chris Farnbach: Yeah. Oh actually it's in Baden Wurttenberg, so in the southwest because there's also a Lichtenau only 10km away from where I grew up. But this is Hessian Lichten now this is the Baden Wurtenberg in Licht.

Joe: Yeah.

Chris Farnbach: Okay, very interesting. Well anyway, this is uh, what we see here though is this is now the third consecutive episode in which um, we talk about multiple dark region space Signals uh last month we talked about ESA and Pavespace, now we're talking about ESA and Atmos. Um we are seeing more and more that Europe is building an end to end space logistics chain. We have like launches with ESA in orbit, transfer with Pavespace and now return with Atmos. Um and we're just seeing that there's a whole ecosystem that is really maturing just beyond those companies that just have a very single like a very specific offering.

Joe: Mhm. Also launching Atmos works for government and defense customers to do use pattern continues space and defense converging on the same cap table.

Chris Farnbach: Yeah true. And again like very interesting over the years how we see companies on the startup scene moving away from IT stuff from apps towards really this like heavy real life uses of like defense or space. Um and yeah being two industries that are even connected very much. Um, moving on bitpanda, um Vienna based 7 million plus users uh no longer positioning itself as crypto only but rather as a broad investment platform with a B2B rebrand to now called Bitpanda Enterprise. This um we have uh Goldman Sachs City and Deutsche bank advising Bitpanda uh on A.H. frankfurt IPO and um, on not only an IPO there but an IPO at a $5 billion plus valuation.

Joe: M the timing is actually strategic. The MICA markets and crypto assets compliance deadline is June 30th. If Bitpanda fights before that it becomes the third major MIKA compliant crypto IPO in Europe. They choose Frankfurt over London explicitly citing liquidity concerns. Sounds familiar.

Chris Farnbach: Yeah, yeah, well I would say it does because last month we had one comma five um the um environmental tech startup uh shelving its NASDAQ listing so signaling also that New York probably is not the place for them. And this month we see that bitpanda picks Frankfurt over London. So yeah we also see here that um, things are shifting and we see that the uh IPO geography um and landscape is a bit different and that yeah New York probably still might be everybody's dream but there are viable paths and other trading places as well says

Joe: the person in New York City.

Narrator: Mhm.

Joe: And then there's quantum IQM quantum computers. Finnish German secured 50 million from Plaquerock. They're preparing for SPAC merger with raaq at a 1.8 million billion pre money valuation operations across Munich and Finland. Blackrock entering European quantum computing. That's also an interesting signal.

Chris Farnbach: Yeah it is a Signal also because BlackRock does not like speculate just at this big scale. So if they are in European Quantum Then blackrock here is seeing some kind of procurement pathway. The spec route is unconventional for a European quantum company but the pre money valuation here suggests really ah, serious conviction from the backers. Um, Moving on, spread AI the company in Berlin uh, having had a $30 million series B IQT the US intelligence communities venture uh ARM think CIA is on the cap table alongside Salesforce, DTCP Growth and HV Capital. Um, they are creating an engineering intelligence platform for product lifecyc cycle data. Um, they have a dual use AI infrastructure being recognized by both defense and enterprise buyers. So also an interesting company here. Um, yeah, uh, collecting money. Um, 30 million is USB is some, some serious signal so spread AI. Yes. Mhm.

Joe: We should add that this segment is the lightning round where Chris started and PrimoGen in Leipzig 4.1 billion years seed for the biotech and XO life in Munich 4 million for digital health AI con XAI in M Munich 5 million years series A for construction AI

Chris Farnbach: in

Joe: Salzburg Austria, seven figure round for industrial additive manufacturing and the Munich and product deep tech pipeline keeps producing.

Chris Farnbach: Yeah, I was just going to say we only have two lightning bolts but it's not because you mentioned uh, several others, uh, several other companies here.

Narrator: Yeah.

Chris Farnbach: So um, yeah once again we think Helsing has a big, has a big future ahead. We um, think SAP might start some kind of M trend showing how established companies might buy um, AI companies or companies in the AI field more and more. And um, yeah we think Frankfurt also has a bright future ahead as a tech listing. Um, stock exchange. Mhm.

Joe: The connecting thread across all three episodes we've done this year is the same Dask. Startups with sovereign customers think defense, physical products think also space and procurement contracts, ah, are winning this cycle. The capital flows, the budget line, it always has.

Chris Farnbach: Yes. And uh, yeah, this is it for the startup news, more or less. But before we close, I have a little personal note. I mean we were hinting at it last uh, episode and at the beginning of this one. This is for now my last episode as co host of the news. Um, I started with uh, no, sorry, Joe started startup radio, uh in 24. Um, I joined for the first time in May 2015, meaning 11 years, um, which is a bit crazy. So like if, if someone would have had a child when I was on this podcast for the first time, this child probably might now move on from elementary school to middle school or something

Joe: like that and get into the difficult years.

Chris Farnbach: Yes, exactly. Uh, so yeah, we have covered hundreds of rounds. Some unicorns in the beginning now dozens in the last shows and we watched, um, the ecosystem in Germany, Austria and Switzerland grow from like a little footnote in European, let alone worldwide, Wincheck, worldwide venture capital. Very hard thing to say in, uh, with a German accent to something that now is really commanding global attention. Um, it has always been fun here in our podcast corner. Um, and yeah, I don't know what to say.

Joe: Well, Chris, I can say it has been a privilege.

Chris Farnbach: Yeah, yeah, privilege and honor has been all mine. Uh, I will leave the show in your good, uh, hands. Knowledgeable hands. So you will continue the news for now as a solo host. The format is going to stay the same. Uh, our standards will stay the same, the thesis is going to stay the same and I think I might keep on listening and have a little side, uh, note once in a while and maybe I will show up. And yeah, as we said, this is not because of some behind the scenes bickering. This has to do with me taking over a new job and having to focus on duties over there.

Joe: And you'll stay on as advisor behind the scenes for the schedule going forward. Our next news episode covers the remaining period through late June and goes live on July 2nd. Uh, we move to bi weekly publication for July and August and in September we return with a summer wrap up, likely two pieces including our H1 2026 review.

Chris Farnbach: Yeah, so yeah, everybody take this as a hint being the right cadence for uh, for your for the upcoming months. Because summer usually is a bit quieter in European ventures and so use the bi weekly format to just go deeply on fewer signals. And as always, this is when the best analysis happens. When you're not overly frantic.

Joe: Mhm. Chris, last word is yours.

Chris Farnbach: Okay, I will use the last words for something about our topics. I would say, um, Europe does not meet permission to build frontier companies. It just needs to stop asking.

Joe: Chris, my friend in far far away New York, thank you for spending more than a decade with me covering the German Dach and European startup scene. We'll miss you very much and hope you come back. At least behind the scenes. You'll stay with startupraid IO for some time to come.

Chris Farnbach: Goodbye.

Joe: Goodbye.

Narrator: The people who seem to get more done than everyone else, they're not working longer hours or running on more caffeine. They've just stopped wasting time on the stuff that doesn't move work forward. Switching apps, re explaining context, hunting for files. Those aren't small inefficiencies. They're hours wasted every week. Superhuman Go gives you those hours back from the makers of Grammarly Go is an AI chat that sits inside every tab and tool you already use, always available and ready to help you with what you're working on. Ask it to draft something, summarize a long thread, pull up a file, or prep you for a meeting. Go handles it without you ever leaving the page you're on. This is what it looks like when AI actually fits into your work instead of adding to it. It's like having a teammate whose only job is to help you be better at yours. Go keeps up so you can move forward with Go working with you. You can show off what you do best. See what superhuman go can do@superhuman.com that's superhuman dot com.