What’s funding like in the defense tech market right now?

All funding deals in the defense tech market over the last 24 months

Below is the table listing all the deals. You can find our methodology at the end of this page.

If you want a deeper understanding of the market and its current dynamics, get our report on defense tech funding, valuations and who's ahead.

Is defense tech funding actually healthier than it was a year ago?

Defense tech funding is clearly healthier today, with more companies raising money, more deals getting done and much larger rounds across the market.

We counted 120 financings between 20 September 2025 and 19 September 2026, up from 83 in the previous 12 months. The number of funded companies climbed from 74 to 110, so the extra activity reached a much wider group of businesses. The median disclosed round also moved from $13 million to $25 million.

The dollar increase was much more dramatic: exactly disclosed capital rose from $5.58 billion to $20.58 billion. That figure needs context because huge late-stage rounds now weigh heavily on the market. Still, the underlying numbers are strong enough that we would call this a healthier funding environment even before getting to the billion-dollar deals.

The one area where the improvement looks less spectacular is startup formation. New companies are still getting funded, and more of them entered the market than a year earlier, but established companies captured most of the new money. Defense tech has become broader and considerably better funded while also moving further into the scale-up phase.

Metric	Current 12M	Previous 12M	Change
Deals	120	83	+44.6%
Funded companies	110	74	+48.6%
Exactly disclosed capital	$20.58B	$5.58B	+269.1%
Median round	$25.0M	$13.0M	+92.3%
First financings	36	27	+33.3%
Follow-on financings	84	56	+50.0%
Early-stage deal share	60.0%	72.3%	-12.3 pp
Later-stage deal share	33.3%	21.7%	+11.6 pp

Would defense tech funding still look stronger without the giant rounds?

Yes. Defense tech funding still grew meaningfully after we removed the biggest rounds, which is why the current boom looks much more solid than the headline total alone suggests.

When we exclude every exact financing above $100 million, current-period funding comes to about $2.35 billion versus $1.60 billion a year earlier, a 47% increase. If we use an even harsher test and remove every exact round above $50 million, capital still rises from roughly $925 million to $1.14 billion.

That is a demanding outlier test given what happened at the top of the market. Anduril raised $5 billion, Shield AI announced a $2 billion financing package, Helsing raised $1.8 billion and Quantum Systems raised $1.2 billion. Those four deals alone would make almost any funding market look exceptional.

Yet smaller funding activity also moved up. The current cycle is broad underneath the spectacular late-stage deals, even though those deals still account for most of the dollars.

Outlier test	Current 12M	Previous 12M	Change
All exactly disclosed capital	$20.58B	$5.58B	+269.1%
Capital excluding >$100M rounds	$2.35B	$1.60B	+47.4%
Capital excluding >$50M rounds	$1.14B	$925M	+23.0%
Deals above $50M	At least 42	15	Strong increase
Deals above $100M	At least 27	6	Strong increase
Largest deal	$5.0B	$2.5B	+100%
Largest deal share of capital	24.3%	44.8%	-20.5 pp
Top-three deal share	42.8%	60.1%	-17.3 pp

Are more defense tech companies actually getting funded now?

Yes. Defense tech funding is reaching far more companies these days, so the market's growth is much wider than a handful of startups raising repeatedly.

We found 110 funded companies in the current period, compared with 74 a year earlier. That 49% increase is slightly faster than the rise in total deal count.

Only eight companies completed multiple financings within each 12-month window. Because the overall company pool grew so much, the repeat-fundraising rate actually fell from 10.8% to 7.3%.

We also see breadth across different stages. Seed and Series A remained active while the number of Series B and later rounds rose much faster. In practical terms, the market managed to add new names without losing the growing group of companies moving into larger follow-on rounds.

Are investors still backing new defense startups, or mainly doubling down on existing winners?

Investors are still funding new defense startups, but almost all of the serious money now goes to companies that have already raised before.

We counted 36 first financings, compared with 27 in the previous period. Their median round increased from $5.5 million to $6.65 million. There is still a healthy stream of companies entering institutional funding for the first time.

The economics change sharply once we look at follow-ons. Those rounds increased from 56 to 84, and their median size rose from $26.5 million to $47.5 million. Exactly disclosed follow-on capital reached $20.11 billion, compared with about $470 million for first financings.

That means roughly 98% of exactly disclosed dollars went into companies with previous funding history. New funded startups are still appearing, but the very large checks are increasingly reserved for companies that have already shown they can win customers, deploy systems or build production capacity.

STARK gives us a good example of how quickly this can happen. The company went from a roughly $15 million Series A in 2024 to a $62 million financing in 2025 and then a roughly €500 million round in 2026.

New companies vs follow-ons	Current 12M	Previous 12M
First financings	36	27
First-financing share	30.0%	32.5%
Median first financing	$6.65M	$5.50M
Capital into first financings	$470M	$178M
Follow-on financings	84	56
Follow-on share	70.0%	67.5%
Median follow-on	$47.5M	$26.5M
Follow-on capital	$20.11B	$5.40B

How big is a normal defense tech funding round now?

A normal defense tech funding round is much bigger today: the median disclosed financing has almost doubled in one year.

The median moved from $13 million to $25 million. That is one of the cleanest numbers in the whole comparison because billion-dollar transactions cannot distort a median in the same way they distort total capital.

Smaller deals have not disappeared either. We still counted 20 rounds below $5 million, exactly the same number as in the previous period, while financings between $5 million and $20 million increased from 29 to 31.

The biggest change happened further up the distribution. At least 33 current financings landed at $100 million or more, compared with nine a year earlier. Roughly one in four classifiable rounds now reaches nine figures.

A $25 million median in a dataset with more than 100 funded companies tells us the shift goes well beyond a few famous startups.

Has defense tech become a late-stage funding market?

Defense tech is much more late-stage than it was a year ago, even though Seed and Series A still make up the majority of individual deals.

Seed's share fell from 50.6% to 40.8%, while Series B almost doubled its share from 8.4% to 18.3%. Altogether, later-stage rounds increased from 21.7% to 33.3% of financings.

The really striking change appears in the check sizes. Median Series C funding went from $60 million to $300 million. At Series D and later, the median climbed from $245 million to roughly $1.48 billion.

Helsing's $1.8 billion Series E and Quantum Systems' $1.2 billion Series D are good examples of what this new layer looks like. A year ago, the market had far fewer companies that could plausibly absorb that much private capital.

Defense tech now has a genuine late-stage funding market sitting on top of its venture base. That changes what the sector can finance, especially when companies need factories, inventory, international expansion and long procurement cycles.

Stage	Current deal share	Previous share	Current median	Previous median
Seed	40.8%	50.6%	$6.65M	$5.75M
Series A	19.2%	21.7%	$35.3M	$29.0M
Series B	18.3%	8.4%	$75M	$100M
Series C	7.5%	8.4%	$300M	$60M
Series D+	6.7%	4.8%	$1.48B	$245M
Unknown	6.7%	6.0%	$52.5M	$11M
Early stage	60.0%	72.3%	-	-
Later stage	33.3%	21.7%	-	-

Which part of defense tech is getting the most investor attention right now?

Defense autonomy is the clearest winner in defense tech right now because it gained more deals, much more capital and much larger typical rounds at the same time.

We counted 73 autonomy financings, up from 41. Capital increased from about $4.30 billion to $17.44 billion, while the median round moved from $13 million to roughly $35.2 million.

This category includes several very different businesses, from autonomous aircraft and drones to multi-domain systems and AI-enabled weapons platforms. Anduril, Helsing, Quantum Systems, Shield AI and STARK all sit inside that broader autonomy bucket in our classification.

Mission software also improved, although the pattern is different. Deal count rose only from 17 to 20, while capital more than tripled to about $1.01 billion and the median round nearly doubled to $20.3 million. Investors are writing larger checks into mission software without creating the same explosion in deal volume.

Current public procurement priorities make the autonomy shift easier to understand. The EU's Readiness Roadmap 2030 explicitly highlights drone defense, counter-drone systems, multi-domain surveillance, electronic warfare and precision strike. NATO has also made deployable, scalable technology a much more explicit part of its innovation agenda.

Which parts of defense tech are losing momentum?

Space security and ISR/sensing look noticeably weaker beneath their funding totals, even as the wider defense tech market is booming.

ISR/sensing produced 15 deals versus 14 a year earlier. Total capital increased, but its median financing fell from $13 million to about $8.6 million. A few larger rounds lifted the dollar total without changing the typical deal very much.

Space security shows an even clearer loss of breadth. We counted four financings versus seven previously, and the median round dropped from roughly $52.7 million to $28 million.

Defense cyber is moving in the other direction, with six deals versus two and roughly $609 million of capital. The sample is small, though, so calling that a full market rotation would be premature.

The boom is quite uneven once we go category by category. Autonomy has deepened across almost every metric, while space security and ISR have much less convincing underlying momentum.

Is Europe really catching up in defense tech funding?

Europe has made a huge jump in defense tech funding, especially at the scale-up stage, although North America still leads comfortably in both deals and dollars.

European companies raised about $4.86 billion in our current period, up from roughly $285 million. Their share of global defense-tech capital moved from around 5.1% to 23.6%.

The interesting part is that Europe's share of deals barely changed. We counted 37 European financings versus 26 previously, but because the whole market grew, Europe still represents roughly the same proportion of deal activity. What changed is the size of the rounds.

Germany is where this becomes obvious. Helsing raised $1.8 billion, Quantum Systems raised $1.2 billion and STARK completed a roughly €500 million financing. Germany alone moved from about $145 million in funding to around $3.65 billion.

North America still accounted for 68 deals and roughly $15.04 billion in current capital. Its lead remains large. Europe simply takes a much bigger seat at the late-stage table now.

That fits the wider environment. NATO reported that European Allies and Canada increased combined defense expenditure by nearly 20% in real terms in 2025, while the NATO Innovation Fund and Dealroom reported a record $8.7 billion of venture investment into European defense, security and resilience startups that year.

Region	Current deals	Previous deals	Current capital	Previous capital
North America	68	39	$15.04B	$4.85B
Europe	37	26	$4.86B	$285M
Asia-Pacific	7	11	$92M	$188M
Middle East	5	7	$534M	$254M
Africa	3	0	$52M	-
Europe capital share	23.6%	5.1%	-	-
North America capital-share change	-13.9 pp	-	-	-

Are more investors piling into defense tech now?

Yes. A lot more investors are showing up in defense tech, and a larger group is coming back repeatedly rather than making a single opportunistic bet.

We identified 136 disclosed investors in the current period, compared with 94 previously. Recorded investor participations increased from 109 to 170.

Repeat activity also deepened. Eighteen investors appeared in more than one financing, twice the previous count of nine. Khosla Ventures appeared in seven current deals versus one before, Bessemer in four versus none, and Andreessen Horowitz in three versus one.

The bigger picture has moved too. Lockheed Martin increased the capacity of Lockheed Martin Ventures from $400 million to $1 billion in April 2026, then earmarked at least $100 million for investments in the UK and Europe. Airbus became anchor investor in the E2D defense and dual-use growth fund, which is targeting €500 million.

Defense tech is attracting a wider investor base while specialist and strategic investors build much deeper exposure.

Are strategic investors becoming a bigger force in defense tech?

Yes. Strategic investors are much more involved in defense tech now, and they are showing up surprisingly early in company development.

Strategic investors participated in 26 current deals, compared with 12 a year earlier. Their participation rate increased from 14.5% to 21.7%, and the median strategic-backed round rose from $22.5 million to $35 million.

Most of these deals happened before the traditional growth stage. Seven were Seed rounds, seven Series A and nine Series B. Only two strategic-backed deals were Series C or later.

Autonomy dominates here as well, with 19 of the 26 strategic-backed financings. Airbus' participation in Quantum Systems' $1.2 billion Series D is the most visible example, although the wider pattern starts much earlier.

This growing strategic presence gives startups access to more than capital. Industrial know-how, integration pathways, manufacturing relationships and customer access can all become important when a company is trying to move from a promising system into something governments can procure at scale.

Are defense tech startups raising again faster?

No. Defense tech companies with a trackable previous round are actually taking longer to raise again, despite how hot the market looks today.

The median observed interval between financings increased from 7.7 months to 11.5 months. About 60.5% of current follow-ons happened within 12 months of the previous round, down from 85% in the earlier period.

The companies that do come back are often raising much more. Among the observations where we could measure both rounds, the median step-up increased from 3.00 times to 3.33 times.

That pattern fits a market where companies have enough capital to operate for longer before returning with a bigger financing need. It also fits the move toward manufacturing and deployment, where companies may spend a year hitting operational milestones before raising the next large round.

We have less complete previous-round data than we have for deal dates or stages, so this section deserves more caution than the headline funding comparison. Still, the available evidence gives us no sign that fundraising cycles are getting shorter.

Do defense tech companies need more proof before they can raise a huge round now?

For the biggest defense tech rounds, investors are increasingly backing companies that can show contracts, deployment, revenue or real production capacity.

We cannot calculate a clean market-wide milestone distribution because public milestone information is too inconsistent. Looking closely at the companies receiving the largest checks gives us a useful picture of where the bar sits.

Quantum Systems said around its $1.2 billion Series D that the business had fast-growing revenue, demonstrated profitability and operational deployment at scale. Its systems carried out more than 19,000 missions in Ukraine in 2025, according to the company.

STARK had secured its first contract within nine months of founding. By its latest financing, the NATO Innovation Fund said the company had more than 20,000 square meters of production capacity and a major framework agreement.

Helsing's $1.8 billion Series E came as the company was expanding from defense software into autonomous aircraft, strike systems, underwater platforms and dedicated manufacturing. Shield AI's $2 billion financing also supports the acquisition of Aechelon, adding a major simulation capability to its existing autonomy stack.

Company age itself has not changed dramatically: the median funded company is still two years old. What has changed is how much money becomes available once a young defense company proves that it can deploy, sell or manufacture.

What are defense tech companies using these bigger funding rounds for now?

Defense tech companies are increasingly raising large rounds to manufacture, deploy and expand, with pure product development taking a smaller role in the biggest financings.

STARK is one of the clearest examples. According to the NATO Innovation Fund, more than 80% of its €500 million financing is going directly into R&D and manufacturing, including electronic-warfare facilities and production capacity for thousands of systems per month.

Quantum Systems said its $1.2 billion round will expand production capacity, strengthen the supply chain, scale delivery across allied markets and continue investing in software and AI.

Shield AI plans to use part of its new capital for the acquisition of Aechelon. Anduril has also tied its recent growth to heavy spending on factories, workforce, inventory and production infrastructure.

This fits what governments are asking for. NATO's current Innovation Scale-Up Package puts government demand, private capital and manufacturing capacity at the center of its approach, while the NATO Engine is explicitly designed to connect technology companies with factories that have spare production capacity.

The fundraising story is moving deeper into industrial execution. These companies still spend heavily on R&D, but the expensive problem now is often producing enough systems and getting them into the hands of customers.

Is the defense tech boom showing up month after month?

Yes. Defense tech funding has been much stronger through the year, rather than depending on one spectacular fundraising month.

The typical current month contained 10 deals, compared with seven previously. Neither period had a zero-deal month.

Median monthly capital increased from about $155 million to $760 million. That tells us much more about consistency than the highest month, which naturally gets distorted by billion-dollar rounds.

The current market still has big spikes. One monthly window reached roughly $6.2 billion. Yet activity between those peaks is also running at a much higher level.

We see the same thing in the deal pipeline: there are simply more companies raising across more months and at more stages.

Is Anduril carrying the whole defense tech funding boom?

No. Anduril is enormous, but the defense tech market is actually less dependent on its biggest company than it was a year ago.

Anduril's $5 billion financing represented roughly 24.3% of current exactly disclosed capital. Its previous $2.5 billion round had represented about 44.8% of the prior period.

The top three deals also account for a smaller share than before, falling from 60.1% to 42.8%. The same pattern holds for the top five and top ten.

The reason is simple: there are now many more very large rounds. Shield AI, Helsing, Quantum Systems and several other companies have joined the part of the market where a single financing can run into hundreds of millions or billions of dollars.

As seen above, this creates a slightly unusual situation. Funding is heavily concentrated in large rounds as a size class, while dependence on any one company has fallen sharply.

Why is defense tech funding accelerating so much right now?

Defense tech funding is accelerating because startups now have a much clearer path from a working product to government demand, large-scale production and repeat deployment.

Several things changed at once.

At the 2025 NATO Summit, Allies committed to a framework targeting defense and security investment equivalent to 5% of GDP annually by 2035, including at least 3.5% for core defense requirements. NATO says European Allies and Canada then increased combined defense expenditure by nearly 20% in real terms during 2025.

The focus has also moved beyond budgets. NATO's current Innovation Scale-Up Package explicitly talks about giving non-traditional defense suppliers clearer demand signals, mobilizing private capital and helping them access manufacturing capacity.

Europe is pursuing similar priorities. The EU's Readiness Roadmap 2030 puts drone defense, counter-drone capabilities, multi-domain surveillance, electronic warfare and precision strike among its priority capability areas.

Those priorities overlap remarkably well with where private funding is moving. Autonomy has become the strongest category in our numbers, Europe has produced several billion-dollar-scale rounds, strategic investors are showing up more often and large financings increasingly mention factories and deployment.

We should still be careful with causality. Public spending plans do not automatically create successful startups. They do make it easier for investors to believe that a defense company with a good product can eventually find a very large customer.

What's the most misleading headline about defense tech funding today?

"Defense tech funding quadrupled" is technically close to the dollar trend and still gives the wrong picture of what changed.

Someone looking only at total capital would mainly see Anduril, Shield AI, Helsing, Quantum Systems and the growing collection of nine-figure rounds. They would miss the much broader change underneath.

More companies are raising. More investors are active. First financings increased. Typical rounds became much larger. Europe developed a real scale-up layer. Strategic capital moved further into early and mid-stage companies. Funding also shifted toward businesses that can manufacture and deploy.

At the same time, most dollars are still going to established companies and large rounds. Early-stage deal share has fallen, and several categories outside autonomy have weaker underlying momentum.

Today's defense tech market looks healthier and more mature, with the spectacular headline growth coming mainly from the new scale-up layer that has formed on top of a broader venture market.

What really changed over the last 12 months?

The biggest change is the arrival of a real defense-tech scale-up market. Companies that prove they can win contracts, deploy products and manufacture systems can now raise amounts that were extremely unusual in this sector only a short time ago.

Funding breadth also improved. We found substantially more deals and almost 50% more funded companies, while new first-time financings continued to grow. The boom reaches well beyond the companies behind the biggest headlines.

Capital has shifted strongly toward existing winners. New startups still enter the market, but established companies receive almost all of the dollars once we move into large rounds. That makes the current market healthier at the base while much more mature at the top.

Autonomy has the strongest genuine momentum. It gained deal volume, round size and total capital together. Mission software is also attracting larger checks, while space security and ISR/sensing have much less convincing underlying trends.

Europe has become a serious defense-tech growth market. The number of European deals did not change dramatically relative to the rest of the market, yet the size of those deals did. Helsing, Quantum Systems and STARK show how quickly European companies have moved into hundreds-of-millions and billion-dollar private rounds.

Investors are also funding a different part of the company lifecycle. The biggest checks today increasingly pay for production capacity, deployment, integration, acquisitions and international expansion. Defense tech still starts with technical innovation, but scaling the technology has become one of the industry's biggest financing needs.

The headline to avoid is simply "funding exploded." The more useful conclusion is that defense tech has become broader, better funded and far more capable of financing companies through industrial-scale growth.