NATO Innovation Fund Portfolio: Every Investment So Far

As of 22 October 2026, the NATO Innovation Fund portfolio lists 24 direct investments in startups and nine venture capital funds on the fund's own portfolio page. The fund, which manages €1 billion from 24 NATO Allies, announced its first deals on 18 June 2024. Its most recent announced deal is a stake in Basecamp Research's $140 million Series C (24 September 2026).

Below is every investment we could verify from NIF releases and company announcements, with country, sector, round and date, followed by how the fund is structured and who runs it.

What the NATO Innovation Fund is

The NATO Innovation Fund (NIF) describes itself as a standalone venture capital firm launched by NATO and backed by 24 Allies, with €1 billion in assets under management, according to its about page. It is headquartered in Amsterdam, domiciled in Luxembourg and has regional offices in London and Warsaw, the latter announced on 13 October 2026.

Limited partners. Twenty-three Allies became limited partners when the fund closed on €1 billion on 1 August 2023. Sweden joined on 18 April 2024, bringing the total to 24: Belgium, Bulgaria, Czechia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, Türkiye and the United Kingdom. The United States, Canada and France are not on the list.

Structure. NIF is a 15-year fund. It invests directly in deep tech, dual-use companies from seed to Series B, with initial tickets of €3 million to €15 million and reserves for follow-ons. It also runs a fund of funds programme that backs specialist venture funds in Allied countries. It operates independently of NATO structures and is separate from NATO's DIANA accelerator, which gives non-dilutive grants rather than equity.

In October 2026 the portfolio page displayed "20+" direct investments, 10 specialist funds backed, more than 100 adoption campaigns and €1.52 billion of co-investment attracted. The same page lists 24 companies and nine funds by name, so the headline fund count does not match the named list.

Leadership changes since 2023

• March 2023: Klaus Hommels of Lakestar was appointed chair.
• July 2023: the Allies appointed the founding team, led by Managing Partner Andrea Traversone with Kelly Chen, Thorsten Claus, Patrick Schneider-Sikorsky and Chris O'Connor.
• July 2025: Kelly Chen stepped away to build a new venture; Ulrich Quay (ex BMW i Ventures) and Sander Verbrugge (ex Innovation Industries) joined as partners.
• September 2025: Fiona Murray became chair and Karl-Christian Agerup vice chair. Hommels moved to chair a new Geopolitical and Strategic Advisory Council.
• November 2025: Erin Hallock, formerly of bp Ventures, joined as partner.
• March 2026: board member Ari Kristinn Jónsson was appointed president, taking office on 1 April 2026 to run day-to-day operations.
• June 2026: Nur Özdemir, ex European Investment Fund, joined as partner to lead fund of funds investing.

The team page we checked on 22 October 2026 lists Jónsson as president and five investment partners: Hallock, Schneider-Sikorsky, Verbrugge, Özdemir and Quay. It no longer lists Traversone, Claus or O'Connor. We did not find an NIF release explaining their departures; O'Connor was last quoted as a partner in May 2025.

Every direct investment in the NATO Innovation Fund portfolio

Dates are when NIF (or the company) announced the deal. Where NIF only named a company in its June 2024 first-investment release, we show the round as undisclosed. Simera Sense appears on the portfolio page but we found no announcement of the deal; the company says it is headquartered in Leuven, Belgium.

Fund investments

NIF's fund of funds programme targets regions where early-stage capital is scarce, such as Southern and Eastern Europe, as well as fast-growing hubs such as the Nordics, according to its first-investment release.

Two of these funds connect to companies in our directory. 201 Ventures, run by former CIA officer Eric Slesinger, counts Delian Alliance Industries in its portfolio, according to NIF. Expeditions' first fund backed Alpine Eagle and Comand AI, among others.

What the portfolio shows

A British tilt. Ten of the 24 direct investments are UK companies and four are German (ARX Robotics, Isar Aerospace, Stark and TYTAN). Italy, Portugal, Norway, Spain, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Finland, Iceland, Sweden and Belgium have one each. Several deals were billed as firsts: Kreios was NIF's first direct investment in Spain, Uplift360 its first in Luxembourg, Kelluu its first in Finland, Laki Power its first in Iceland and TERASi its first in Sweden. See our UK, Germany and Finland pages for related companies.

Beyond weapons. NIF tags 8 companies as Defence, 7 as Security and 9 as Resilience. The defence group includes drones and robotics such as Tekever, ARX and Stark (see our drones and counter-drone pages). The resilience group includes biotech (Portal, Inbiome, Basecamp Research), AI hardware (Fractile, 2D Photonics) and materials (iCOMAT, Uplift360). Space is a cluster of its own, with Isar, Kreios, SatVu, Simera Sense and Space Forge (see space and ISR).

Follow-ons in big rounds. NIF has stayed in as some companies raised far larger sums: Isar Aerospace's €270 million Series D, Stark's €500 million round and Tekever's 2025 round, which valued it above £1 billion. Tekever then raised a $580 million Series D at a $6.4 billion valuation on 23 September 2026; NIF is not among the investors named in that release. Fractile announced a $220 million round in May 2026 led by Accel, Factorial Funds and Founders Fund; its release does not list existing backers by name.

The context is a fast-growing market. A Dealroom and NIF report published on 10 February 2026 found European defence, security and resilience startups raised a record $8.7 billion in 2025.

The NIF portfolio companies are private; none has a stock ticker. This article is for information only and is not investment advice.