Helsing Valuation History: Every Funding Round from 2021 to 2026

Helsing is valued at US$18 billion (about €16 billion) after a $1.8 billion Series E announced on 13 July 2026. That is the latest round as of 22 October 2026, and it makes the Munich company the most valuable defence tech startup in Europe. Five years earlier, after its first institutional round in November 2021, Helsing was valued at just over €400 million.

This page lists every Helsing funding round from 2021 to 2026, with the amount, the reported valuation, the investors and the source for each figure. Helsing itself has only published a valuation once, for the Series E. Every earlier valuation comes from press reports, and where outlets disagree we show both numbers.

Helsing funding rounds at a glance

The table below covers every round Helsing or reputable press has reported. Amounts are as announced (euros up to 2025, US dollars for 2026). Valuations are post-money unless stated, and are reported figures, not company disclosures, except where marked.

Adding up the announced rounds gives roughly €1.37 billion raised up to and including the Series D, a total that matches Wikipedia's summary. With the Series E, which Munich Startup converted to €1.6 billion, the total comes to roughly €3 billion by our count. Helsing has not published a cumulative figure.

2021: seed and the Daniel Ek Series A

Helsing was founded in Munich in 2021 by Torsten Reil, Gundbert Scherf and Niklas Köhler. According to Munich Startup, it raised a €8.5 million seed round in spring 2021, with Zalando co-founders Robert Gentz and Rubin Ritter among the backers.

On 17 November 2021 the company announced a €102.5 million Series A. Spotify co-founder Daniel Ek put in about €100 million through his investment firm Prima Materia and joined the board. Munich Startup reported a valuation of more than €400 million. The money was earmarked for growing the team past 70 people and for product development.

What drove the price: almost nothing commercial. Helsing was a software company with no public contracts at the time. The valuation reflected the founders, Ek's conviction and an early bet that AI would become central to European defence. The investment also drew criticism; Wikipedia records calls by some Spotify artists for boycotts in 2021 and again in 2025.

2023: Series B and unicorn status

The Series B of €209 million, announced on 14 September 2023, was led by US investor General Catalyst. Saab joined as a strategic investor, deepening an existing partnership. Helsing did not disclose a valuation. Munich Startup put it at €1.5 billion, citing its own Insights data, while Handelsblatt reported €1.7 billion. Either figure made Helsing a unicorn.

This was the first step change driven by contracts. The Series B release names two wins from 2023: in June the German government selected Helsing and Saab to supply AI-enabled electronic warfare capability for the Eurofighter upgrade, and in August Helsing and its consortium partners won the contract to provide the AI backbone for the Future Combat Air System (FCAS). The company also said it had been active in Ukraine since 2022, with personnel deployed on an ongoing basis.

2024: Series C and the move into hardware

On 11 July 2024 Helsing announced a €450 million Series C, again led by General Catalyst, with Elad Gil, Accel, Saab, Lightspeed, Plural and Greenoaks. The release said the money would fund product development and R&D, with a focus on European sovereignty and the NATO eastern flank.

The valuation is the most disputed of all Helsing rounds. Munich Startup reported Handelsblatt's figure of €4.5 billion, but its own Insights estimate was much lower, at €1.8 billion to €2.7 billion. When the next round came in 2025, Handelsblatt described the previous valuation as about €5 billion (Munich Startup). Wikipedia also gives about €5 billion. We treat roughly €4.5 billion to €5 billion as the best-supported range.

The context for that jump was Ukraine. The Series C release says Helsing had set up the Defence Manufacturers Alliance with the Ukrainian government and held classified contracts in the maritime and land domains. In December 2024 it announced the HX-2 strike drone, which Wikipedia describes as having a top speed of 250 km/h and a range of up to 100 km, built at Helsing's own factory in southern Germany. That marked a shift from a software-only supplier to a company that also builds weapons.

2025: Series D at about €12 billion

Helsing announced its €600 million Series D on 17 June 2025, led once more by Prima Materia, with existing investors Lightspeed, Accel, Plural, General Catalyst and Saab plus new investors BDT & MSD Partners. The release did not state a valuation. Tech.eu reported about €12 billion, a figure first reported by the Financial Times, and Munich Startup gave the same number citing Handelsblatt. A May 2026 report by Investment Week expressed the June 2025 valuation as $14 billion.

That more than doubled the 2024 price in under a year. Several things happened in between. According to Wikipedia, Helsing reportedly agreed to supply thousands of HX-2 drones to Ukraine, agreed in June 2025 to buy the aircraft maker Grob Aircraft, and unveiled the SG-1 Fathom underwater glider. Later in 2025 it presented the CA-1 Europa, an uncrewed combat aircraft concept with a first flight targeted for 2027. Its software portfolio now included Altra for reconnaissance and strike and Cirra for electronic warfare.

Not all coverage was positive. In April 2025 Bloomberg reported allegations from former staff, investors and military experts about overpriced drones and unreliable software, as summarised by Wikipedia. Investors still more than doubled the valuation two months later.

2026: Series E at $18 billion

The Series E was first reported in May 2026 as a raise of about $1.2 billion at an $18 billion valuation, with Dragoneer expected to provide most of the money alongside Lightspeed, according to a Financial Times report summarised by Investment Week. When Helsing announced the round on 13 July 2026 it had grown to $1.8 billion. The Next Web noted that the valuation stayed at $18 billion as the round grew, so the extra $600 million came in at the same price.

The company's own press release lists Dragoneer Investment Group, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Disruptive, Iconiq, Growth Equity at Goldman Sachs Alternatives, JPMorganChase, CPP Investments, General Catalyst, Plural and Stepstone as participants, and Prima Materia, Accel and Greenoaks as existing investors. It does not name a lead. The Next Web reported that Dragoneer led and Lightspeed co-led. Bloomberg led its coverage with Goldman Sachs' participation. Helsing said demand "significantly exceeded the available allocation" and that it "remains predominantly European-owned".

In euro terms the step up was smaller than in earlier rounds: from about €12 billion to about €16 billion, roughly a third, compared with a more than doubling in 2025. Defense News called it Europe's biggest-ever funding round for a defence technology startup. The round came two weeks after The Next Web, citing documents seen by Politico, reported that Germany was lining up a €580 million contract for Helsing to build the Combat Fighter System Nucleus (CFSN), the software backbone for future networked air combat. That contract was reported, not confirmed, at the time.

What drove each step

• 2021 (about €400m): founders and a single committed backer, before any public contracts.
• 2023 (€1.5bn to €1.7bn): first government contracts (Eurofighter EW, FCAS AI backbone) and Saab as a strategic shareholder.
• 2024 (about €4.5bn to €5bn): work in Ukraine and the move into its own strike drones.
• 2025 (about €12bn): volume drone orders for Ukraine, the Grob Aircraft deal, and a product range across air, land and sea.
• 2026 ($18bn, about €16bn): late-stage and institutional money (Dragoneer, Goldman Sachs, JPMorganChase, CPP Investments) and a reported German combat-cloud contract.

The investor mix tells the same story. Early rounds were led by a founder-friendly family office and a venture fund. The Series E brought in crossover and pension money that usually invests closer to a liquidity event. We cover what that means for a possible listing in our guide to a Helsing IPO and how investors get exposure.

How Helsing compares with other European defence tech valuations

Helsing's $18 billion sits well above the rest of the European field. In the same weeks, according to Defense News, Quantum Systems raised $1.2 billion at an $8 billion valuation, Stark raised €500 million at a reported €3.2 billion valuation, and ICEYE raised €450 million in a Series F. Harmattan AI became France's first defence unicorn in January 2026 at €1.4 billion. The Next Web put Helsing in a global frame: Anduril raised $5 billion in May 2026 at a $61 billion valuation, more than three times Helsing's.

For the full company profile see Helsing in our directory, and for comparable companies browse autonomy and AI startups or defence tech startups in Germany.

Caveats on these numbers

Private valuations are negotiated prices for a specific class of shares, often with preferences attached, and they are not the same as a market capitalisation. Helsing confirmed a valuation only for 2026. Earlier figures come from the Financial Times, Handelsblatt and Munich Startup, and they do not always agree. Exchange rates also matter: the Series E is $18 billion in Helsing's release and €16 billion in Munich Startup's report of the same round.

This article is for information only and is not investment advice.