World leaders, startup founders and VCs will gather little over 100 miles from the Russian border for the Latitude59 conference in Tallinn, Estonia, to discuss European innovation and security.
Since 2012, Latitude59 has played host to thousands of entrepreneurs and senior decision-makers from around the world, championing startups as the “key ingredient” in changing the world for the better.
Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, investment has been flowing into companies focused on tech to bolster Europe’s defences and upgrade the continent’s military capacity — a key focus of this year’s event.
Last year a record $5.2bn was invested into European defence, security and resilience, according to a report from data platform Dealroom and the NATO Innovation Fund (NIF), a €1bn fund backed by 24 nations dedicated to investing in deeptech and defence technology.
Patrick Schneider-Sikorsky, a partner at the NATO Innovation Fund, tells Sifted he hopes “to meet great founders building technologies to deter, defend and keep us safe”.
We’ve woken up to the reality we’re in and, for now at least, we’re not looking away.
“The Baltics, for obvious geographical and historical reasons, understood long before other parts of Europe the urgency to reinvest in our collective defence and security,” he says. “The need for more funding for these startups and the necessity for more mechanisms for the rapid adoption of these capabilities won’t change any time soon.”
The war in Ukraine has upended Europe’s defence tech industry, which over the past three years has attracted unprecedented sums of money, redrawn ethical red lines and prompted some companies to pivot to military applications.
Mozilla policy analyst Joel Burke recently published a book on Estonian startups and innovation, titled “Rebooting a Nation”. He tells Sifted: “Estonia, along with Ukraine, is really leading the charge in pushing European security forward, and much of that is through the tech ecosystem where entrepreneurs and investors are supporting defence tech.”
He adds: “This is a chance to really get a glimpse at how the ‘frontlines’ are thinking about defence tech.”
Betting on the Baltics
Working with the threat of Russian aggression just over the horizon, Federico Fini, a deeptech VC at Join Capital, tells Sifted that in Estonia “security is part of the air you breathe”, creating constant demand for innovation.
“The war in Ukraine has forced defence startups to accelerate, to test, deploy and iterate in real-time,” he says. “Something fundamental has shifted. We’ve woken up to the reality we’re in and, for now at least, we’re not looking away.”
For the Baltics, “both over-reaction and under-reaction carry significant risks”, says Margus Uudam, founding partner of Tallinn-based investment firm Karma VC, a long-time investors in the region.
“The broader geopolitical environment is part of our reality but it doesn’t overshadow the work that’s happening here,” he says. “Baltic startups are showing strength where it matters: We’re seeing renewed discipline in capital deployment. And founders are building leaner teams without sacrificing ambition. The fundamentals are intact and improving.”
Indeed, while this year’s event will kick off with a keynote on the opportunity for venture capital in defence, not everyone attending is focused on military applications. For examples, there will be panels on a range of topics — from EU regulation to cryptocurrency and climate tech.
Anisah Osman Britton, a former Sifted reporter who now works as director of operations at Unlock VC, says debates over EU rules are likely to dominate some conversations.
“I’ve heard some founders describe regulation as a competitive advantage, with enforced guardrails making teams think more about the ethics of what they’re shipping,” she says. “But there’s also a narrative suggesting Europe needs to loosen up to keep pace with the US, so I’m curious to see how that thread plays out.”
Putting defence tech to one side, Latitude59 promises to showcase the best of the Baltics’ startup scene in one place. “As a business founded in Lithuania, we’re mindful of the broader geopolitical context, and we’re sure it will be on people’s minds at the conference,” says Milda Jasaite, senior director of corporate development at Vinted, which recently launched its own VC unit: Vinted Ventures.
“Our focus at Latitude59 will be on how we can help strengthen the European tech ecosystem: both by building a strong European company and by supporting tech companies building businesses in recommerce.”
Read the orginal article: https://sifted.eu/articles/defence-tech-russia-tallinn-conference-latitude-59/
