STARK, a Berlin defence company that makes loitering munitions and other unmanned systems, announced on 23 June 2026 that it had raised €500m (about $570m).
Bloomberg reported that Sequoia Capital and Peter Thiel's Founders Fund led the round. The NATO Innovation Fund, Project A, Air Street Capital, 201 Ventures, Advent and Döpfner Capital also took part.
Reports differ on the valuation. Bloomberg said the company put it at €3.2bn (about $3.65bn) in a statement, while tech.eu reported €3.5bn (about $4bn). Bloomberg said STARK had raised €140m (about $160m) in total before this round.
“The challenge facing Europe is no longer whether we can innovate, it’s whether we can scale. This financing is a €500 million commitment to Europe’s defence industrial base — funding the engineers, factories and technologies that Europe needs now.”Uwe Horstmann, Founder and CEO, Stark
What STARK does
STARK was founded in 2024 and builds unmanned systems for air, land and sea. Its main products are loitering munitions, drones that can circle over a battle area before striking a target. DroneXL reported that its Virtus loitering munition has been deployed in Ukraine.
The company says it won its first contract within nine months of being founded and has since built more than 20,000 square metres of production capacity. It operates in five countries; Bloomberg listed Germany, Ukraine, Sweden and Greece, along with a production site in south-west England.
Uwe Horstmann is co-founder and chief executive. Bloomberg noted that he is also a founding partner of Project A, one of the investors in the round.
What the money is for
STARK said more than 80% of the capital would go directly into research, development and manufacturing. The NATO Innovation Fund said the money would pay for new electronic warfare research facilities, raise output to thousands of systems a month and speed up the development of sovereign defence capabilities.
The company recently signed a framework agreement for its main loitering munition programme. Bloomberg reported that Germany approved three contracts in 2026 worth up to €1bn (about $1.14bn) each to buy strike drones from STARK, Helsing and Rheinmetall for its brigade stationed in Lithuania.
Patrick Schneider Sikorsky, a partner at the NATO Innovation Fund, said STARK had shown it could move quickly from concept to deployment. Luciana Lixandru, a partner at Sequoia, said in the company statement that few companies execute at the speed STARK has.
Investors and ownership
Sequoia had invested in two earlier STARK rounds, according to Bloomberg. DroneXL reported that Sequoia led a $62m seed round in August 2025 and that the company passed a $1bn valuation in January 2026.
Thiel previously invested through Thiel Capital, and his stake has been a political issue in Germany. Bloomberg reported that the Defence Ministry had told lawmakers Thiel Capital owned less than 10% of STARK, and a company representative said Thiel's overall holding, including through Founders Fund, fell after the new round.
STARK competes with Helsing, another German startup, and with US companies such as Anduril that are selling into Europe, as venture investors put more money into European defence technology.
Company website: stark-defence.com