An indication of the magnitude of the moolah moving around was the April 16 Reuters headline "Rheinmetall sees order potential of up to $341 bln, CEO tells Handelsblatt" That's just one armaments manufacturer.
From the New York Times, April 14:
Eric Slesinger made a career shift from the spy agency to venture capital, championing military start-ups as Europe beefed up its defenses amid an uncertain relationship with the United States.
During a 24-hour swing through Copenhagen last month, Eric Slesinger met with engineers making maritime drones, developers of war-planning software and an adviser to NATO. He had recently visited London for a dinner with a senior British intelligence official and would soon head to the Arctic to learn about the technologies that could handle extreme climates.
The packed schedule would seem more common for Mr. Slesinger in his former job as an officer at the Central Intelligence Agency. But now the 35-year-old was in high demand as he parlayed his spy agency credentials into a career as a venture capitalist focused on the suddenly relevant area of defense and national security technology in Europe.
“This is all happening at warp speed,” said Mr. Slesinger, who has backed eight defense start-ups and has negotiated with several more.
As President Trump throws the future of the trans-Atlantic relationship into question, governments across Europe have outlined plans to potentially spend hundreds of billions of euros on weapons, missile-defense programs, satellite systems and other technologies to rebuild their armies. Technologists, entrepreneurs and investors are racing to take advantage of the spending boom by creating new defense start-ups.
Few paid attention four years ago when Mr. Slesinger moved to Madrid with the idea that Europe would need to drastically increase defense spending because U.S. military protection could not be taken for granted. Now his predictions look prescient. After Mr. Trump’s inauguration, which followed his defeat of Vice President Kamala Harris in the November election, members of his administration called Europe “pathetic” and military mooches of the United States.
“Whether Trump won or Harris or anyone else, the fact would have remained that there’s a technology catch-up that needs to happen in Europe,” Mr. Slesinger said while walking between meetings in Copenhagen last month. “Maybe it’s accelerated in certain ways, but this was a long time coming.”
Mr. Slesinger is now in the unusual position of a former American intelligence officer who is trying to profit from Europe’s planned military transformation. His one-man venture capital firm, 201 Ventures, is completing a $22 million fund to invest in young start-ups at the intersection of tech and national security.
Mr. Slesinger’s initial investments include a maritime drone company in Sweden, a maker of manufacturing technology in Britain, an artificial intelligence firm in Greece and a hypersonic vehicle start-up in Germany.
The United States has a long tradition of investing in defense — Silicon Valley was started in part with Pentagon funding — and has seen the rise of several military-centric start-ups, such as Palantir and Anduril. Europe has had fewer successes, partly because defense-related businesses were viewed as so unethical that many investors there refused to put money behind them.
“There has been this awakening moment, and it’s going to result in a dramatic increase in spending in defense, security and resilience technology,” said Chris O’Connor, a partner at the NATO Innovation Fund, a 1 billion euro tech fund started with money from 24 members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, though not the United States.
The NATO fund is the biggest financial backer of Mr. Slesinger’s firm. Mr. O’Connor said Mr. Slesinger’s national security experience made him ideal for identifying companies with tech that could win government contracts....
....MUCH MORE
