Right now, Amsterdam-based Eager Enterprise Companions declares that it has accomplished the primary shut of its European defence and safety know-how fund – elevating greater than €150 million to develop into the biggest DefenceTech enterprise capital fund in Europe.
The European Funding Fund (EIF) and pension fund PME every dedicated €40 million. Eager is the primary European VC fund to obtain a dedication from the EIF beneath its new €175 million Defence Funding Programme. Different buyers embrace TNO, the Netherlands’ largest utilized analysis organisation, and ABN AMRO.
“With the primary shut accomplished, we’re firing on all cylinders,” say Alexander Ribbink and Giuseppe Lacerenza, companions at Eager Enterprise Companions. “We now have institutional backing from the EIF and PME, and an advisory board with deep expertise in each navy operations and defence coverage. Europe has the expertise, the know-how and the ambition. What was lacking was capital and entry to launching defence prospects. That’s the hole we’re closing.”
In parallel, Warsaw-based Expeditions Fund II has raised over €100 million in 2025 (with a goal of as much as €150 million) to spend money on cybersecurity, AI, quantum and DefenseTech in Europe. Moreover, Luxembourg-based Balnord has closed a €70 million first spherical for its Fund I to again frontier and dual-use applied sciences within the Baltic Sea area, with a path towards a €100 million closing shut by mid-2026. Taken collectively, these three funds signify roughly €210 million of dedicated capital in Europe’s DefenseTech and dual-use enterprise area in 2025.
“Our message to entrepreneurs is evident: If you’re constructing know-how that may make a distinction on the trendy battlefield or strengthen the resilience and deterrence of Europe, we have to speak. That is about including entrepreneurs to Europe’s defence-tech ecosystem and constructing a stronger, extra modern Europe collectively,” added Ribbink and Lacerenza.
NATO Secretary-Common Mark Rutte made clear that Europe can now not wait to strengthen its personal defence capabilities.
Investing extra in European know-how is important for attaining strategic autonomy. The conflict in Ukraine has demonstrated that scalable, software-driven applied sciences, together with AI and autonomous methods, now considerably influence effectiveness on the trendy battlefield.
European startups are additionally constructing these applied sciences. But just one quarter of European defence procurement budgets at the moment stays inside the EU. In consequence, innovators lack each capital and entry to preliminary defence prospects.
Eager Enterprise Companions, based in 2016, has constructed a fame for supporting DeepTech ventures with a thesis-led method. The agency operates out of Amsterdam and London and is understood for actively collaborating with European tech entrepreneurs lengthy earlier than a proper funding.
Eager backs corporations that develop dual-use know-how in addition to defence-first corporations constructing vital capabilities immediately for defence. The fund focuses on key areas inside DefenseTech, together with cybersecurity, autonomous methods, deterrence applied sciences, and area purposes.
Eager goals to spend money on greater than 25 corporations from Seed to Collection B, with the emphasis on Collection A, with investments starting from €1 to €10 million.
Earlier defence and safety investments embrace EclecticIQ, Intelic (previously Avalor AI), and Perciv AI. Eager expects intensive collaboration and co-investment with different European VC companies over the approaching years.
To assist this subsequent section of progress, Eager is ramping up the group and hiring further funding professionals.
2025 has marked a busy 12 months for Eager – as per EU-Startups protection. In January 2025, EU-Startups reported that Eager VP was “elevating €125 million to strengthen Europe’s defence-tech ecosystem” – a fund to again dual-purpose applied sciences in NATO nations and assist 20-25 startups from seed to Collection B. In Might 2025, EU-Startups reported that Eager had secured a €40 million dedication from the European Funding Fund (EIF) for its European Defence & Safety Tech Fund.
