• Professor Dame Fiona Murray appointed as Chair of the Board of Directors and Karl-Christian Agerup as Vice Chair
• New Geopolitical and Strategic Advisory Council to provide the NATO Innovation Fund and its portfolio companies with guidance and support to accelerate European industrialisation
• Klaus Hommels appointed as Chair of the Fund’s Geopolitical and Strategic Advisory Council alongside senior military, business and policy leaders, including NATO Deputy Secretary General Radmila Šekerinska; Supreme Allied Commander Transformation Admiral Pierre Vandier; Aleksander Kwaśniewski, former President of Poland; General (ret.) Chris Badia; and EU Special Representative (EUSR) for human rights of the Council of the European Union Kajsa Ollongren, former Minister of Defence of the Netherlands

The NATO Innovation Fund – a €1+ billion venture capital fund, backed by 24 NATO Allies – has been instrumental in establishing a vibrant DSR (Defence, Security, Resilience) ecosystem to safeguard and amplify the Alliance’s technological edge. To help accelerate European reindustrialisation and boost the Alliance’s defence and security capabilities, the NATO Innovation Fund announces today the following updates:

• Board members take on expanded roles: The Board of the NATO Innovation Fund named Professor Dame Fiona Murray as Chair and Karl-Christian Agerup as Vice Chair of the Board of Directors. Their combined expertise in innovation and investment will enable them to further drive the NATO Innovation Fund’s efforts to close critical capability gaps, build the capacity of DSR ecosystems across the Alliance and accelerate the adoption of technologies with a focus on investing in early-stage capital deployment, while ensuring continuity within the Board of Directors.
• Tackling the industrialisation challenge – Launch of Geopolitical and Strategic Advisory Council: Given rapidly evolving geopolitical dynamics that demand new approaches to scaling and procurement, the NATO Innovation Fund is launching a Geopolitical and Strategic Advisory Council designed to once again catalyse the DSR ecosystem and ensure that the urgent challenges of rapid adoption and industrial scaling faced by the DSR ecosystem are met. Dr. Klaus Hommels will chair this new council, ensuring the Fund remains at the forefront of strategic impact and industrialisation.

Members of the Council bring expertise from across business, armed forces and government. They include NATO Deputy Secretary General Radmila Šekerinska; Supreme Allied Commander Transformation Admiral Pierre Vandier; Aleksander Kwaśniewski, former President of Poland; General (ret.) Chris Badia; and EU Special Representative (EUSR) for human rights of the Council of the European Union Kajsa Ollongren, former Minister of Defence of the Netherlands.

Expanded roles for Board Members

Professor Dame Fiona Murray and Karl-Christian Agerup are taking on expanded responsibilities as Chair and Vice Chair of the Board of Directors respectively. They have both played a key role in developing the Fund’s strategic direction, working closely with the Board and the team to establish the core focus on strategic equity investments in the most exciting new deep tech ventures and funds across the Alliance that address NATO’s urgent capability gaps in defence and security, and ensure Europe’s resilience.

Geopolitical and Strategic Advisory Council Launch

Before the NATO Innovation Fund’s establishment, less than 5 percent of European VC investing went into supporting defence technologies. In 2024, funding for DSR startups reached a record-high of €5.3 billion, with financing tracking towards exceeding €8 billion in 2025.

As the Fund’s inaugural “Scaling Up Towards European Resilience” report demonstrates, the step change in investment and attitudes orchestrated by the Fund is yielding success, and winners are emerging across domains, but output remains low. While the threat to Europe is rapidly increasing, European NATO nations do not have the capacity to build what is needed to defend themselves.

Therefore, the NATO Innovation Fund is launching a Geopolitical and Strategic Advisory Council to once again catalyse the ecosystem to address the dual challenges of rapid adoption and industrialisation at scale to ensure that the ecosystem is equipped to address our capacity needs. The Geopolitical and Strategic Advisory Council will initially focus on approaches to accelerate the integration of innovative solutions in Europe’s reindustrialisation efforts and pathways for more agile adoption of technological capabilities by Allied nations.

By convening senior global leaders from NATO, the armed forces, business and policy, the Council will focus on developing actionable insights and forging the strategic partnerships required to enhance the industrial capacity of the Alliance.

The Industrialisation Challenge and Capacity Gap

The report finds that the anticipated threefold increase in defence spend across European NATO nations by 2029 will generate up to €400 – €800 billion in additional market capitalisation – ten times the capitalisation of Volkswagen. Recognising the significant gap between 150+ defence startups (averaging 5 years of operations) and established industrial players (100+ years operational history), the report identifies urgent industrialisation gaps that the Council will aim to address with its work:

• Current inventory does not suffice to protect European nations from emerging threats: Despite rapidly growing demand, equipment inventory for European countries has not significantly increased since 2022. For example, the inventory of main battle tanks has only increased by 1 percent, while inventory of fighter jets and submarines has fallen by 5 percent and 2 percent respectively.
• Established industrial players face significant backlog: Traditional equipment has very long lead times, with the order book of leading European defence companies facing more than five years of backlog, with significant amounts of unfulfilled ratios at a time when demand for equipment is on the rise.
• The defence industry remains highly fragmented: European governments work with four times more industrial players than the US. For example, while the US only has two battle tank contractors – BAE Systems and General Dynamics, Europe has 8 – including Rheinmetall, KNDS and PGZ, among others.

Meanwhile, the report finds that – with a 50K deficit in interceptor drones – Europe would not have the equipment it needs to defend 12 Eastern European capitals against Russian drones. To help accelerate the industrialisation of emerging tech companies in this space, the Council will facilitate strategic alliances to enable the rapid and scalable industrialisation of emerging technologies; track the progress of the European DSR ecosystem towards building the capacity that the Alliance needs by 2029; and advocate for the necessary policies and regulations to drive industrialisation across NATO nations. This will enable nations to build resilient, interconnected supply chains that rapidly scale breakthrough technologies through coordinated industrial infrastructure.

With its updated governance structure and refreshed investment team, the NATO Innovation Fund is well-positioned to serve as the catalyst for NATO’s technological edge.