A thousand new defence startups: inside Europe's largest defence-innovation network
Key points
Key takeaways from a European Republic podcast interview with European Defense Tech Hub co-founder Benjamin Wolba (August 2026):
An accidental network, now the continent's largest. Wolba and co-founder Jonatan Luther-Bergquist ran their first European Defence Tech hackathon in Munich in June 2024 with no brand or community — two civilians reacting to a viral LA defence hackathon. It has since grown into what he calls Europe's largest and fastest-growing defence-innovation network.
43 hackathons, ~80 companies tracked in two years. Across roughly 43 events the hub is tracking about 80 emerging projects, spanning idea-stage stealth teams up to companies that have secured pre-seed and seed rounds of around €3m.
A neutral network, not a VC. EDTH takes no equity and does not cherry-pick winners — it positions itself as an industry network working with venture studios (Hexa, Bifrost Defense), VC funds and partners like EY to help the whole ecosystem grow.
Early exits already emerging. Wolba cited multiple acquisitions of hackathon alumni, including Munin Dynamics (micro-missiles against drones, now UK-based) and Lancelot Systems — a combat-footage intelligence platform (Avalon) recently acquired by Ocrist Technologies, an 800-plus-person group.
Builders meet soldiers. The hackathons deliberately pair engineers with end users — Ukrainian, German, Dutch, Danish and US soldiers — so prototypes get tactical feedback fast; Wolba argues defence tech is useless without understanding how it will be used in the field.
Financing and banking are structural bottlenecks. He flagged the need for asset-backed financing over VC for hardware, the importance of loan guarantees (e.g. a Defence, Resilience and Security Bank), and noted EDTH's own main bank account was cancelled for being "too close to defence".
Learn from Ukraine's feedback loop. Wolba pointed to Ukraine's Brave1 marketplace — where units with real budgets procure directly — as a model for agile procurement, calling for regulatory sandboxes and open field-testing centres with response times in days, not months.
Drones are still underappreciated; enablement is Europe's edge. He argued Europe won't out-produce Ukraine or China on quadcopters, but can lead on enabling tech — advanced and quantum sensors, laser communications — while startups must vertically integrate toward full capabilities rather than remain point solutions.
Read more: European Defense Tech Hub
