Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, defence tech has taken off in popularity with investors, as VCs have grown less averse to backing military tech.
Like much of the VC ecosystem writ large, defence tech is still a male-dominated industry. But several women VCs and LPs have been making a name for themselves in the niche. Sifted pulled from our own reporting as well as polling external industry insiders to find out the women investors to know in defence tech. If you know of someone you think should be added to this list, please get in touch: anne@sifted.eu.
Sille Pettai — CEO of Estonian state-backed LP SmartCap
Pettai is the CEO and head of investments at Estonian state-backed LP SmartCap, which invests out of three funds: a €250m fund for backing generalist VCs, a €100m fund for investing in green tech and, its most recent, a €100m fund for investing in defence and weapons tech.
In general, LPs are still largely opposed to their VCs investing in straight defence or weapons — but SmartCap is one of the few that buck the trend. Pettai says SmartCap’s new defence fund won’t invest in any VCs unless they are allowed to invest in weapons.
“We might not aim for the low hanging fruit, so we’re taking rather higher risks, which often results in the funds having rather challenging fundraising themselves,” she recently told Sifted of the new fund. “The whole defence tech sector has basically been created overnight. There is no historical performance. It’s an emerging sector in Europe, and all these funds need to position themselves right.”
The defence fund writes cheques of up to €20m into VC funds and up to €10m into defence tech startups.
Prior to SmartCap, Pettai managed private equity and debt funds at the Nordic/Baltic banking group Swedbank Investment Funds.
Kelly Chen — partner at the NATO Innovation Fund
Chen joined the NATO Innovation Fund — a €1bn fund backed by 24 nations dedicated to investing in deeptech and defence technology — in the summer of 2023 as one of its founding partners.
Prior to the NIF, Chen was a partner at Silicon Valley VC firm DCVC for more than six years, where she invested in companies in AI, robotics, manufacturing and logistics. She was also a fixed-income derivatives trader at Barclays in New York as well as an angel investor.
At the NIF, Chen and the other partners invest in new materials and manufacturing, climate, energy and biotech, as well as spacetech and defence tech: areas they deem as ‘resilience’. As a dual use fund, Chen is in charge of the startups’ commercial success, helping with strategy and commercialisation.
Chen told Sifted last year that she was particularly interested in supply chain startups: “We have a tonne of energy resources, raw materials that are pretty critical, as well as parts of our supply chain that are very dependent on various other countries. So how do we think about creating a more resilient Europe?
“Supply chain touches everything, from the raw material all the way to manufacturing, assembly logistics and getting to the end customer, whether that’s commercial or government.”
The NIF has thus far invested in defence startups including Munich-based unmanned robotics startup ARX Robotics.
Eveline Buchatskiy — managing partner of D3
Buchatskiy is the managing partner of Kyiv-based D3, a VC fund backing early-stage defence startups in Ukraine. Its first fund launched in 2023 with a target of $30m (Buchatskiy says it is nearing a final close).
D3 invests in pre-seed and seed startups focused on defence capabilities across military hardware and software, including AI and cybersecurity. It backs startups in Ukraine and its allies, and writes initial cheques of $300k with the possibility to invest $750k in follow-on investments.
Buchatskiy is also a venture partner at early-stage VC firm TA Ventures, based in Frankfurt, and was previously the founder and managing partner of seed fund One Way Ventures, as well as a mentor and director at accelerator Techstars, according to her LinkedIn.
She’s noticed a big change in the types of founders going into defence tech since the invasion. “Three years ago, if you said you were doing defence, you would be looked at like you’re doing tobacco. It would be marginalised, people would look at you like you are creepy,” she recently told Sifted, adding that, at a recent defence tech hackathon she attended in Munich, she met people from the universities of Oxford and Cambridge, as well as the Technical University of Munich.
Elya Chiechienieva — partner at D3
Chiechienieva joined D3 alongside Buchatskiy in the spring of 2023 as a partner at the fund. Previously she was a principal at TA Ventures in Kyiv; she also worked in e-commerce and finance at L’Oréal, according to her LinkedIn.
Chiechienieva also cofounded Ukraine Future Tech Minds (UFTM), a non-profit that helps support engineering education in Ukraine by offering prototyping labs and an up-to-date curriculum.
Nicola Sinclair — founder and general partner of Twin Track Ventures
Sinclair spent nearly 20 years in the British Royal Airforce before she started her own VC fund, Twin Track Ventures, in 2024.
Sinclair is still raising the fund and declined to provide further details, but says it is focused on dual-use and deeptech, investing in pre-seed and seed startups in areas like compute, communications, remote sensing and supply chain resilience. It’s also focused on NATO, Australia, the UK and US geographies.
Sinclair previously acknowledged the tension between dual use and straight defence investors: “The defence investors do not like the dual use community that much, because it’s seen as, like, a cop out. It’s seen as, ‘You’re not really supporting the mission’,” she told Sifted last year. But “VC isn’t a charity. You can only really back stuff from a VC model that is going to [provide a return]”.
Deborah Fairlamb — founding partner of Green Flag Ventures
Fairlamb, an American who’s based in Kyiv, founded Green Flag Ventures alongside American entrepreneur Justin Zeefe in 2023. The US-based firm backs early-stage Ukrainian founded startups in the defence and dual use space, including AI and cyber. It is currently raising and deploying out of its first $20m fund.
The firm has so far invested in startups like Himera, a defence startup making electronic warfare-resistant communication systems and equipment, and AI drone detection tech startup Kara Dag.
Being in Ukraine, Fairlamb has observed how rapidly the defence industry is changing because of the war. “I still believe that the West really does not understand how much warfare has changed,” she told Sifted last week. “I think other defence tech ecosystems are going to have to change, because the Russians have changed. The Chinese have changed. They have no choice.”
Previously Fairlamb was a business development and investment consultant in Ukraine.
Read the orginal article: https://sifted.eu/articles/women-investors-defence-tech/
