European Defense Tech

Ecstasy is the word. We're really glad to be backing Neil, Thomas and the team. They're absolute rockstars. We also put together our thoughts on why this makes sense. Basically a high-level, informal investment memo. Check it out below!

On the last week of June 2024, we gathered 100+ hackers from across Europe and abroad in Munich for the first European Defense Tech Hackathon and 48 hours of intense hacking 🦾 It wasn’t just about drones. How about fluorescent nanoparticles to track unmanned vehicles? Or using machine learning for 3D map reconstruction and environmental change detection? 34 projects originated from the hackathon that could save lives, and we’re super excited to see how they will evolve. We’re not in the business of organizing hackathons for the sake of hackathons. Our goal is to catalyze startups that develop solutions to actual solutions and products that get deployed in the real world. At this point, we’d like to thank our sponsors and supporters for making this event possible—first and foremost, Entrepreneur First, Helsing, and Auterion, whose early commitment has been crucial to getting this off the ground. We would also like to thank many others, including DefSecIntel Solutions, Spleenlab GmbH, Quantum-Systems, Lambda Automata, TYTAN Technologies, ARX Robotics, General Catalyst, D3 Venture Capital Firm, Presto Ventures, Project A, Inflection.xyz, Bundeswehr University Munich, TUM Venture Labs Aerospace, BRAVE1, Bundeswehr Cyber Innovation Hub, and the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine. See you for the second hackathon edition in February 2025 in conjunction with the Munich Security Conference. Stay tuned, follow us on social media, and subscribe to our newsletter on our website (link in the comments) 👇 Video credits: Zhen Ming Ng #EDTH2024

Great to see another defense tech hackathon in the Bay Area in the making:

Congrats to our partner Quantum-Systems and team for this great achievement! European Defense tech breaking into AUKUS 🫡

How can we incapacitate Russia from doing this ever again?

The first edition of the European Defense Tech Hackathon is in the books with 100+ participants, 34 projects, and lots of energy 🚀 1st place: Distributed signal and target detection with software-defined radio and TDoA: Sirvan Almasi, Satyam Goel, and Johannes Pfannschmidt 2nd place, and landing an invitation to the Resilience Conference in London: microMANPAD, a tool for defense against unmanned aerial systems: Aabharan Hemanth, Akarsh Gopal, Magnus Freyer, Joshua Soutelo, and Stavros Messinis 3rd place: Module for detecting and localizing anti-personnel mines based on their thermal signature: Kaloyan Miladinov, Ognyan R., Filostratos Titopoulos, and Aleksandar Mechkarov (a high school team!) We are grateful to have had several subject matter experts and technology experts from across Europe as mentors on site to give direct feedback to participants so that they could iterate quickly based on direct feedback. We had intentionally set the challenges wide to allow for creativity rather than building something exactly to specification. It led the teams to work not exclusively on drones but on a wide variety of problems and approaches to solutions. For example, some investigated fluorescent nanoparticles to track unmanned vehicles, 3D map reconstruction, or environmental change detection. We want to thank again all our sponsors and supporters: Helsing, Auterion, DefSecIntel Solutions, Spleenlab GmbH, Quantum-Systems, Lambda Automata, TYTAN Technologies, ARX Robotics, General Catalyst, D3 Venture Capital Firm, Presto Ventures, Project A, Inflection.xyz, Entrepreneur First, Bundeswehr University Munich, TUM Venture Labs Aerospace, BRAVE1, and The Ministry of Defense of Ukraine, Bundeswehr Cyber Innovation Hub Follow us on social media, subscribe to our newsletter on our website, and stay tuned for the second edition of this hackathon, which will be held in February 2025 in conjunction with the Munich Security Conference. Finally, many thanks to Zhen Ming Ng for taking amazing pictures at the event! #EDTH2024 #European #DefenseTech #Hackathon

Last weekend folks from 🇸🇪Sweden & 🇩🇪Germany, Jonatan H. Luther-Bergquist, Jens H. & Benjamin Wolba, gathered the first edition of the European Defense Tech Hackathon in Munich with 100+ participants, 34 projects and panel discussions on the latest trends in industry. With participation of military and technology experts from across Europe, including Ukrainian defense representatives, as mentors on site, the engineers received direct feedback to iterate quickly and more precisely. 🎙️Jonatan H. Luther-Bergquist, cofounder of European Defense Tech, the investor at Inflection.xyz: “We had set the challenges intentionally wide, to allow for creativity rather than building something exactly to specification. It led the teams to work not exclusively on drones but on a wide variety of problems and approaches to solutions. For example, some investigated fluorescent nanoparticles to track unmanned vehicles, 3D map reconstruction or environmental change detection.” Winners of the European Defense Tech Hackathon 2024: ✔️1st place: Distributed signal and target detection with software defined radio and TDoA. ✔️2nd place, and landing an invitation to the Resilience Conference in London: microMANPAD, a tool for defense against unmanned aerial systems. ✔️3rd place: Module for detecting and localizing anti-personnel mines based on their thermal signature by a high school team. The second edition of the hackathon plans on February 2025 in conjunction with the Munich Security Conference. The event organized with help and support by Helsing, Auterion, DefSecIntel Solutions , Spleenlab GmbH, Quantum-Systems, Lambda Automata, TYTAN Technologies, ARX Robotics, General Catalyst, D3 Venture Capital Firm, Presto Ventures, Project A, Inflection.xyz, Entrepreneur First, Bundeswehr University Munich, TUM Venture Labs Aerospace, BRAVE1, The Ministry of Defense of Ukraine, Bundeswehr Cyber Innovation Hub #DefenseTech #DefenseInnovationHighway #DIH

What you see right before being hit by props… European Defense Tech

The first hacks are underway, we’re expecting a massive variety of solutions! From nanomaterials, to jets, to nets… Inflection.xyz Entrepreneur First Technical University of Munich ARX Robotics Auterion

Maybe eu/acc can be more than a meme! First day of the European Defense Tech hackathon that EF is co-organizing with our friends Jonatan H. Luther-Bergquist from Inflection.xyz & Benjamin Wolba Projects ranging from drone operations, biodefense, AI-led OSINT & more!