Investors Portugal foresees more defence unicorns

The President of Investors Portugal believes there will be more opportunities for Portuguese technology startups in areas like defence as European NATO countries beef up defence spending.

After the announcement that the Portuguese tech company Tekever, which produces military drones, recently announced it had become the seventh Portuguese unicorn, Lurdes Gramaxo, who represents venture capital investors in early stage startups, believes that technology companies can shift to defence technology if regulations are quickly relaxed.

In an interview with the business daily Negócios, she said that defence investment was a priority for the EU given recent developments in world geopolitics where there had been a substantial mobilisation of resources to finance the sector.

And this mobilisation provides a huge opportunity to finance the development of technology companies in sectors as varied as artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, deeptech and even life sciences that could be harnessed to have applications in defence.

Lurdes Gramaxo said that adjustments could be made to regulations on existing limitations by institutional funds that typically have a central role in defining delimitations.

Moreover, new and quite significant initiatives specific for financing this type of projects and funds had been launched all over Europe such as the NATO Fund that has already financed some Portuguese companies.

The president of Investors Portugal points to the recent launch of several initiatives and funds dedicated to defence or dual-use technology showing that there is a growing appetite from private investors in these domains.

“By their nature, venture capital funds seek to identify areas with the greatest medium and long-term growth potential and we think that defence is clearly on the table and will be a recurring theme in the strategic discussions among fund managers,” she said.