VC Firm Lakestar Raises $300 Million to Fund European Tech Sovereignty

European investment firm Lakestar has closed a $300 million Resilience I Fund designed to invest in defense and dual-use technologies that enhance Europe’s resilience capabilities, the company said in a Friday (July 17) post on LinkedIn.

“As [Klaus Hommels], our founder and chairman, wrote last year: freedom is not for free,” Lakestar said in the post. “Sovereignty and Europe’s capabilities in critical technologies are a core concern for all of us. This fund delivers on that commitment — giving us the capital and the focus to partner with founders who have chosen to solve the hardest problems in the most consequential category of our time.”

Lakestar said in the post that 20 founders in its existing portfolio, together with others that are still operating in stealth, have raised over $5 billion in private capital to pioneer Europe’s resilience capabilities.

“Your products and solutions are procured by militaries and governments across major European and allied nations, generating several billion [U.S. dollars] in revenue,” the firm said in the post. “More than 5,000 experts work across your companies, making this cluster one of the most important and fastest-growing talent pools in European technology.”

It was reported in October 2025 that Lakestar is one of Europe’s top venture capital (VC) firms and that it has backed tech giants like Revolut and Spotify. That report also said the firm planned to focus on current investments such as defense technology groups Helsing and Auterion, while still backing a new generation of European startups.

It was reported in June that the European Union unveiled an ambitious strategy to reduce its dependence on American technology by strengthening Europe’s domestic capabilities in cloud computing, artificial intelligence, semiconductors and digital infrastructure.

The proposal, described by EU officials as a technology sovereignty initiative, reflects mounting concern in Brussels that Europe’s reliance on U.S.-based technology providers has become both an economic vulnerability and a national security risk.

On July 7, the European Systemic Risk Board (ESRB) issued a report in which it said that the concentration of the world’s top AI companies outside the EU exposes the region to “strategic dependency and geopolitical risks.”

The ESRB called on the EU to expand its “capacity, expertise and strategic autonomy” in this area.