Helsing raises $1.8bn at an $18bn valuation, and its cap table tells a story

https://media.thenextweb.com/2026/06/Helsing-Founders.avif

Munich’s Helsing has raised $1.8bn at an $18bn valuation, making it Europe’s largest defence startup. The round is a bet on sovereign AI. A lot of the money paying for it is American.

Europe’s biggest defence startup just got a lot bigger. On Monday Helsing said it had closed a $1.8bn Series E that values the Munich company at $18bn.

The round was heavily oversubscribed. “Investor demand significantly exceeded the available allocation”, Helsing said in its statement. The numbers show it. The deal was first reported in May at $1.2bn. By the time it closed, it had grown to $1.8bn at the same $18bn valuation, as Tech Funding News noted. Investors put in half a billion dollars more without paying a cent more per share.

A very fast climb

Helsing was founded in 2021 by Gundbert Scherf, Torsten Reil and Niklas Köhler. It builds AI software and hardware...

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