Throughout a 24-hour swing by way of Copenhagen final month, Eric Slesinger met with engineers making maritime drones, builders of war-planning software program and an adviser to NATO. He had not too long ago visited London for a dinner with a senior British intelligence official and would quickly head to the Arctic to be taught concerning the applied sciences that might deal with excessive climates.
The packed schedule would appear extra widespread for Mr. Slesinger in his former job as an officer on the Central Intelligence Company. However now the 35-year-old was in excessive demand as he parlayed his spy company credentials right into a profession as a enterprise capitalist centered on the all of a sudden related space of protection and nationwide safety expertise in Europe.
“That is all occurring at warp velocity,” mentioned Mr. Slesinger, who has backed eight protection start-ups and has negotiated with a number of extra.
As President Trump throws the way forward for the trans-Atlantic relationship into query, governments throughout Europe have outlined plans to potentially spend lots of of billions of euros on weapons, missile-defense packages, satellite tv for pc programs and different applied sciences to rebuild their armies. Technologists, entrepreneurs and traders are racing to benefit from the spending increase by creating new protection start-ups.
Few paid consideration 4 years in the past when Mr. Slesinger moved to Madrid with the concept that Europe would want to drastically enhance protection spending as a result of U.S. army safety couldn’t be taken without any consideration. Now his predictions look prescient. After Mr. Trump’s inauguration, which adopted his defeat of Vice President Kamala Harris within the November election, members of his administration referred to as Europe “pathetic” and army mooches of the US.
“Whether or not Trump received or Harris or anybody else, the very fact would have remained that there’s a expertise catch-up that should occur in Europe,” Mr. Slesinger mentioned whereas strolling between conferences in Copenhagen final month. “Perhaps it’s accelerated in sure methods, however this was a very long time coming.”
Mr. Slesinger is now within the uncommon place of a former American intelligence officer who’s attempting to revenue from Europe’s deliberate army transformation. His one-man enterprise capital agency, 201 Ventures, is finishing a $22 million fund to spend money on younger start-ups on the intersection of tech and nationwide safety.
Mr. Slesinger’s preliminary investments embrace a maritime drone firm in Sweden, a maker of producing expertise in Britain, a synthetic intelligence agency in Greece and a hypersonic automobile start-up in Germany.
The USA has a protracted custom of investing in protection — Silicon Valley was began partially with Pentagon funding — and has seen the rise of a number of military-centric start-ups, akin to Palantir and Anduril. Europe has had fewer successes, partly as a result of defense-related companies have been considered as so unethical that many traders there refused to place cash behind them.
“There was this awakening second, and it’s going to lead to a dramatic enhance in spending in protection, safety and resilience expertise,” mentioned Chris O’Connor, a associate on the NATO Innovation Fund, a 1 billion euro tech fund began with cash from 24 members of the North Atlantic Treaty Group, although not the US.
The NATO fund is the largest monetary backer of Mr. Slesinger’s agency. Mr. O’Connor mentioned Mr. Slesinger’s nationwide safety expertise made him ideally suited for figuring out corporations with tech that might win authorities contracts.
“He’s going to finish up enjoying a essential function,” Mr. O’Connor mentioned.
Mr. Slesinger grew up simply outdoors Washington, D.C., and attended Stanford. There, he was a standout within the mechanical engineering program, mentioned Craig Milroy, co-director of Stanford’s Product Realization Lab, the place college students can workshop {hardware} concepts.
Whereas a lot of Mr. Slesinger’s Stanford classmates explored jobs with Apple or Google, he regarded elsewhere. “He got here into my workplace at some point and mentioned, ‘I’m making use of to hitch the C.I.A.,’” Mr. Milroy mentioned. “That’s by no means occurred earlier than or since.”
Mr. Slesinger is cagey about his 5 and a half years working on the C.I.A. However together with his engineering background, he mentioned, he labored amongst extra Q-like figures from the James Bond movies, geeks working within the background to unravel technical issues for intelligence officers within the discipline.
“Think about being a scholar, sort of nerd engineer, and then you definately get to go on this place the place you’ve gotten like a Santa’s workshop-like functionality,” he mentioned. “Intelligence issues are actually arduous, they’re gnarly, and you are feeling an actual accountability to do one thing to unravel the issue.”
In 2019, Mr. Slesinger stepped again from the company to attend Harvard Enterprise College. He additionally spent a summer season working for the C.I.A.’s enterprise capital fund, In-Q-Tel.
Round this time, he turned fixated on the concept that Europe should rebuild its militaries after a generation of low investment. The USA spent about $880 billion on protection in 2024, greater than double what different international locations in NATO spent mixed.
With the US centered on China, Mr. Slesinger was satisfied he would see the tip of the so-called peace dividend, which has allowed European international locations to spend extra on social providers and pensions since World Warfare II, as an alternative of on tanks and fighter jets.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 additional crystallized his thesis. He then began the European Protection Investor Community, which now contains about 125 traders, entrepreneurs and policymakers. Final yr, he began 201 Ventures.
At first, he struggled to boost funding as a result of many traders refused to again army applied sciences. However he finally raised cash from NATO and located advisers together with Eileen Tanghal, who used to supervise In-Q-Tel’s London workplace; David Ulevitch, a basic associate on the Silicon Valley enterprise agency Andreessen Horowitz; and the creator Sebastian Mallaby.
Over the previous 12 months, Mr. Slesinger, who additionally has an Italian passport from his household’s roots there, has traveled to fifteen international locations. On a current journey to the Arctic, he rode a snowmobile to a distant space being thought of for testing new energy sources and a communication expertise. In Switzerland, he toured the world’s strongest particle accelerator.
In February, Mr. Slesinger was in Germany for the Munich Safety Convention when Vice President JD Vance delivered a blistering speech criticizing Europe. Inside weeks, Germany, France, Britain and different European international locations pledged to vastly enhance army spending, alarmed that they may not rely on the US as a dependable ally.
“It felt like a sea change,” mentioned Mr. Slesinger, who watched Mr. Vance’s speech from a laptop computer at a close-by lodge. “You would really feel it as he was talking.”
How a lot of the brand new spending will attain start-ups is unclear. Missiles, ammunition and fighter jets are more likely to be increased priorities than tech from small, untested corporations.
Mr. Slesinger mentioned it will take years to measure success, however he expects to spend his $22 million fund within the subsequent two years and has already begun interested by elevating a bigger quantity. Previously few months, he has been peppered with pitches from European entrepreneurs all of a sudden keen on making army tech.
For almost everybody he meets in Europe, there may be one nagging query: Is he actually not working for the C.I.A.?
“I’m actually out!” he mentioned.
