# A Berlin drone startup founded two years ago closed a €500 million round at a €3.5 billion valuation, led by Sequoia and Founders Fund, making it one of the most valuable defence-tech companies Europe has produced.
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## Public content

**issue:** 12
**type:** pulse
**date range:** 23 Jun 2026
**tagline:** A Berlin drone startup founded two years ago closed a €500 million round at a €3.5 billion valuation, led by Sequoia and Founders Fund, making it one of the most valuable defence-tech companies Europe has produced.
**published at:** 2026-06-24
**sections:** 
  -     **body:** On **23 June**, **Stark Defence**, a Berlin maker of **loitering munitions** founded in 2024, closed a **€500 million** funding round at a valuation **above €3.5 billion**, making it one of Europe's most valuable defence-tech companies after just two years. The round was led by **Sequoia Capital** and **Peter Thiel's Founders Fund**, with the **NATO Innovation Fund**, **Project A**, Air Street Capital, 201 Ventures, and Döpfner Capital also investing. Total capital raised now exceeds **€660 million**.

Stark's flagship **Virtus** kamikaze drone is already under sovereign contract: in February 2026, the **Bundeswehr** awarded Stark an initial **€269 million** agreement, with a framework potentially worth **€1 billion**, to supply loitering munitions to Germany's 45th Armoured Brigade in Lithuania. The company operates production facilities in Germany, Ukraine, Sweden, Greece and Swindon, England. More than **80 percent** of the new capital goes to manufacturing scale and R&D, including new electronic warfare research facilities targeting production of **thousands of systems per month**.
    **emoji:** 🎯
    **label:** DEFENCE TECH
    **heading:** Stark reaches €3.5bn on Europe's largest defence-tech raise
  -     **body:** Stark went from founding to a €3.5 billion valuation in two years on the back of a real sovereign customer and hardware shipping into active military use. That trajectory previously existed only in US defence corridors.

The tell is the cap table: **Sequoia** and **Founders Fund** lead, with the **NATO Innovation Fund** as institutional anchor. The largest European defence-tech raise in memory still carries American growth investors at the top. The pattern is the one the continent keeps rediscovering: the cheque large enough to matter now lands in Europe, but the lead still originates in the US.

For a **defence or dual-use founder**, the actionable template is now visible. Stark assembled a sovereign Bundeswehr contract, US growth capital, and NATO institutional backing into a stack that works at the €500 million scale. Build toward the sovereign customer first; the cap table follows.
    **emoji:** 💡
    **label:** WHY IT MATTERS
    **heading:** Two years, a sovereign contract, and a US-led €3.5bn valuation

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