Helsing nears $18B, Rheinmetall and Telekom build drone shield, Brave Germany opens grants, EDA tests kamikaze drones, Council green-lights €90B loan
Munich's Helsing is closing a $1.2B round at an $18B valuation, the highest yet for European defence tech. Rheinmetall and Deutsche Telekom unveiled a national counter-drone shield ahead of AFCEA Bonn, while Berlin and Kyiv signed Brave Germany, a joint grant programme for startups working on unmanned systems, AI, lasers and missiles. The European Defence Agency opened a €2 million Sentinel Strike Challenge for loitering munitions, and EU defence ministers confirmed the first €90 billion Ukraine loan tranche will flow in June.
Rheinmetall and Deutsche Telekom launch national counter-drone shield at AFCEA Bonn on 12 May
On 11 May, Rheinmetall and Deutsche Telekom announced a joint civilian counter-drone shield for German cities and KRITIS sites, presented at the AFCEA Bonn trade show from 12 May. The system combines radar, RF, video and audio sensors with jammers, interceptor drones and potentially Rheinmetall's 10 kW laser, which has been tested against drones at ranges up to one kilometre. The most interesting technical bet is using the 5G standalone network at Helmut Schmidt University, on Ericsson hardware, to detect cellular-controlled drones by spotting anomalies in mobile traffic. The deal lands on top of Germany's October 2025 federal police law authorising drone shootdowns and Poland's $3.8 billion SAN counter-drone contract signed on 30 January for 52 firing platoons and around 700 vehicles. For founders: counter-drone procurement is shifting from point defence to national, telco-integrated coverage, opening real budget for sensor fusion, ML detection and small-effector startups that can plug into carrier infrastructure.
Source: Rheinmetall and Telekom are collaborating on drone defence in the civilian sector, Rheinmetall
Technology
European Defence Agency opens €2 million Sentinel Strike Challenge for loitering munitions, apply by 4 June
The European Defence Agency announced the Sentinel Strike Challenge, a €2 million competitive trial for loitering munitions, with applications closing 4 June 2026. EDA wants reliable, comparable evidence on performance, resilience, reliability and safety to feed member-state capability planning, and the trials will cover the full strike sequence: mission planning, launch, target tracking, neutralisation and post-strike assessment. Each candidate system must integrate precision attack with navigation and ISR functions, meaning pure airframe vendors will need software and sensor partners to qualify. The challenge sits alongside the EDA Steering Board agenda from 12 May and complements national procurement signals like Helsing's HX-2 framework and Poland's SAN contract. For founders: this is one of the cleanest paths to a multinational reference customer for a Class 1 strike drone, but the integrated navigation-plus-ISR requirement effectively excludes single-discipline teams, so consortium formation in the next two weeks is the binding constraint.
Source: European Defence Agency Launches Kamikaze Drone Challenge, The Defense Post
Previous issues
11 May 2026
EU drone procurement hub launches, ARX scales Ukraine fleet, Spaceflux extends seed, Brussels readies FAC defence debate
Brussels and the Council enter a defence-heavy fortnight as foreign ministers convene to review EU military support for Ukraine and the updated threat analysis. A new pan-European drone procurement platform, Intelic BASE, went live on 4 May connecting ten countries' manufacturers with ministries of defence. Munich's ARX Robotics quintupled its deployed UGV fleet in Ukraine, while London's Spaceflux added £3.5 million to bring its seed round to £9 million. European Pravda also detailed how roughly €30 billion of the EU's €90 billion Ukraine loan will flow to drones, missiles and air defence in 2026.
4 May 2026
US troop pullout from Germany, EIC backs eight scale-ups, Ariane 64 flies second mission, Indra anchors EDF round
Washington's withdrawal of 5,000 troops from Germany has reframed European demand signals just as Brussels deploys fresh capital. The EIC put forward €146.5 million in equity for eight strategic-tech scale-ups on 27 April, while Indra anchored 15 EDF projects worth €799 million in the 30 April round. Ariane 6 flew its second four-booster mission with 32 Amazon Leo satellites the same day, and ATMOS Space Cargo closed a €25.7 million Series A to industrialise return-from-orbit logistics.
27 April 2026
Rheinmetall FV-014 multi-billion framework, ATMOS €25.7M Series A, Indra–Kongsberg Type 212CD doubles to 12 hulls
Rheinmetall signed a multi-billion-euro framework agreement with the Bundeswehr on 22 April for FV-014 loitering munitions, first call-off ~€300M for ~2,500 strike drones. ATMOS Space Cargo closed a €25.7M Series A the same day to scale Europe's sovereign return-from-orbit capability. Indra signed a follow-on contract with Kongsberg to equip six additional Type 212CD submarines for Germany and Norway, doubling the equipped fleet to 12 hulls.