From Sifted.eu, December 12:
The fund, backed by 24 NATO allies, has announced six VC fund investments so far
The NATO Innovation Fund (NIF) — the €1bn vehicle backed by 24 NATO allies to invest in defence and deeptech startups and investors — has recently seen some turmoil at the top. In the last several months, two of its five founding partners left the fund, just about a year after it launched.
Despite the departure of Thorsten Claus, NIF’s former head of fund-of-funds, the firm’s VC investment strategy “hasn’t really changed,” partner Patrick Schneider-Sikorsky tells Sifted. It’s still looking for deeptech-focused investors who are keen to fund startups in NATO countries.
Since NIF started investing about a year ago, the firm has received "hundreds" of pitches from GPs, says Amalia Kontesi, NIF’s head of communications.Chris O'Connor, the NIF partner currently leading the fund-of-funds strategy, said NIF wants to keep "an aggressive pace of fund-of-fund investments consistent with what we've done so far." To date, NIF has announced six fund investments, including Central Eastern Europe (CEE)-focused deeptech firm OTB Ventures, German deeptech investor Vsquared Ventures, space-focused firm Alpine Space Ventures and, most recently, Baltics-based BSV Ventures. Kontesi says that the firm is “looking for the best talent” to hire more partners but can’t share anything at the moment.
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