🎧 When Music Meets Warfare: Daniel Ek’s Bold €600M Defense Bet
In June 2025, Spotify’s visionary founder and CEO, Daniel Ek, catapulted himself into the defense sector spotlight—not as a sound engineer, but as a major investor. Ek’s investment firm, Prima Materia, alongside defense-focused firms and venture firms, co-led a €600 million funding round into Helsing, a Munich-based AI defense company. This ambitious move not only doubled down on a previous €100 million Series A investment, it also thrust Ek into the heart of Europe’s most impactful deep‑tech and defense startups.
1. 💶 The Deal: What Just Happened?
On June 17, 2025, Reuters and the Financial Times reported that German defense startup Helsing had secured a €600 million investment round, led by Prima Materia—co-founded by Daniel Ek and Spotify investor Shakil Khan—raising the company’s valuation to nearly $12 billion. This positioned Helsing among the top five most valuable private tech startups in Europe.
The funding was structured using both traditional equity and alternative financing and saw backing from established venture capital heavyweights like Lightspeed Ventures, Accel, Plural, and General Catalyst, in addition to strategic resort from defense company Saab.
This round boosted Helsing’s total capital raised to around €1.37 billion—a meteoric rise from its initial €100 million Series A injection back in November 2021.
2. 🚀 Helsing at a Glance: Strategy and Products
Founded in 2021 by gaming entrepreneur Torsten Reil, ex-Defense Ministry official Gundbert Scherf, and AI expert Niklas Köhler, Helsing initially focused on AI software to integrate battlefield data in real time. Today, they've expanded into manufacturing loitering strike drones, piloting autonomous aircraft, and even developing AI-controlled submarines.
Some standout products include:
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HF‑1 strike drone: GPS-resilient, AI-targeting, thousands delivered to Ukraine.
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HX‑2, their advanced quadcopter-style drone, with automated strike and surveillance capacity and mass-production potential.
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SG‑1 Fathom, an autonomous underwater drone for multi‑day surveillance and acoustic data processing, unveiled in 2025.
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AI‑enabled warfare autonomy systems—even tested on a Saab fighter jet.
Helsing’s strategy? Become a pan-domain defense platform: integrating AI-led decision-making across ground, air, and sea. With partnerships in motion with Saab, Mistral AI, Airbus, and satellite firm Loft Orbital, they’re building a locked-in ecosystem.
Recent moves, like acquiring Grob Aircraft, aim to bring full-stack capabilities, marrying AI software to physical assets—making Helsing a serious vertical defense innovator .
3. 🛡️ Why Europe—and Why Now?
Several converging trends made this investment ripe:
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Russian aggression & Ukraine war accelerated Europe's defense tech efforts.
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A continental tech funding gap, especially compared to the U.S./China in AI and autonomy, is driving bold bets.
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NATO’s deep‑tech focus led to new funding channels that embrace defense‑adjacent companies, signaling a shift in ESG funding norms .
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A clear demand for AI‑enabled battlefield awareness—Helsinki’s integration across sensors and autonomy fits exactly that need.
Ek himself cited that “AI, mass and autonomy are driving the new battlefield,” indicating that traditional arms procurement needs a tech play.
4. 🎙️ Ek’s Vision: Ethics, Europe, and National Security
Daniel Ek framed his defense plays through the lens of European tech sovereignty and ethical AI. Prima Materia was launched with the mandate to back “ambitious science and technology to solve society’s biggest challenges” (verdict.co.uk).
He’s previously noted that Europe lags in AI, and funding bold defense‑adjacent tech is one way to close that gap.
Crucially, Helsing restricts sales to “countries which meet the highest democratic standards”—a pledge to connect defense innovation with democratic values.
Ek himself chairs Helsing’s board, reinforcing that he’s not just a passive funder but a strategic participant, committing to the ethical modernization of defense tech in Europe.
5. ⚠️ Backlash: Boycotts, Ethics, and Spotify Collateral
Ek’s involvement in defense tech hasn’t been controversy-free. When he announced a €100 million investment in November 2021, some Spotify artists and users responded with boycotts and outrage.
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Producer Darren Sangita tweeted:
“#BoycottSPOTIFY now! … Music is NOT War!”
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Sameer Gupta, a jazz percussionist, withdrew his catalog and offered Bandcamp discounts to those leaving Spotify.
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Others called it a “complete contradiction of our music philosophy”.
Fast Company noted that many remarked, “using our content to fund war is the final straw.”
Ek responded by emphasizing that the investment is separate from Spotify, channeled through Prima Materia, and focused on defense of liberal democracies, not weaponization for unethical ends .
6. 🏹 Europe’s Defense Tech Race: Where Helsing Fits In
Helsing isn’t alone. The defense tech segment in Europe is growing rapidly, fueled by national budgets, NATO’s venture initiatives, and startups like Quantum Systems, Tekever, and American rival Anduril.
The NATO Innovation Fund backing space, AI, dual-use platforms underscores an ideological and fiscal shift. Helsing—deep-pocketed, ethically framed, and massively scaled—is now at the apex .
7. 🥂 What Comes Next? IPO, Partnerships, Scrutiny
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IPO hopeful: Helsing co-founders vow to stay private until a planned IPO.
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Global contracts: Already delivering thousands of drones to Ukraine, with contracts in the UK, Germany, Sweden, and in collaboration with Saab.
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Tech expansion: Developing autonomous subs, satellites, AI-integrated aircraft systems, and the Grob Aircraft acquisition .
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Regulatory focus: Bloomberg flagged concerns over pricing and software reliability, signaling future scrutiny.
8. 🎧 Why Investors Should Care
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Defense budgets rising: Europe’s military spending and pivot to dual-use tech offers sustained demand.
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AI as a multiplier: Enterprise interests in autonomy and sensor fusion scale well across markets.
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Clear growth path: From software to hardware to full system integration and stock market momentum.
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Founder's big play: Ek’s scale, credibility, and financial commitment position both Helsing and Prima Materia as pillars of European deep-tech.
🔍 Final Thoughts
Daniel Ek’s €600 million co‑lead of Helsing’s funding round is as bold a strategic play as launching Spotify was in 2008. It signals a fusion of culture, tech ambition, and geopolitical strategy.
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It reflects the transformation of defense into a tech-enabled, ethically framed sector.
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It demonstrates Europe's push to nurture homegrown tech champions to rival U.S./Chinese dominance.
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And it begs broader conversations: should a music streaming CEO double as a defense board member? Can Spotify remain political-neutral when its CEO backs drone warfare?
Ek’s belief in democratizing tech, protecting democracies, and building European autonomy is evident. But so is the ethical dilemma—mixing consumer entertainment with instruments of war. Helsing’s success will pivot on technological reliability and ethical uses; public sentiment may pivot faster than any drone payload.
