Kerry Baldwin is the Co-founder and Managing Partner at IQ Capital, a deeptech VC firm with $1bn AUM, investing £1-30m in teams within AI & Automation, Computing and Semiconductors, Advanced Engineering & Energy, Security, and Resilience. She is the Chair of the Pensions and Private Capital Expert Panel, unlocking £50bn in DC funding for unlisted equities. Kerry also serves as a Competitive Advisory Board Member at the City of London Corporation and was the Chair of the British Private Equity and Venture Capital Association (2021/22). She is an Independent Investment Committee Member for British Patient Capital, overseeing co-investment programs and Future Fund: Breakthrough. Kerry is a member of the Board of Governors and Finance Committee at Plymouth University and serves on the Steering Committee for Scale-Ups at the Royal Academy of Engineering. She is a specialist in Reg-tech, Sup-tech, Cyber, Data, Defence, and Security investments and advises governments on VC, defence, and R&D ecosystems. She is also an Honorary Fellow in Entrepreneurship at Cambridge University.

Andy is a former Apple, Nest and Google executive, serial entrepreneur, and product design and innovation specialist. Central to the founding leadership team, he is architecting Tiberius as a next-generation defence technology company.

Ryan Benitez is the Chief Commercial Officer at NATO's Defence Innovation Accelerator of the North Atlantic (DIANA), where she is responsible for leading the organisation’s industry and venture capital engagement strategy, building pathways to commercialise and scale dual-use startups across NATO member countries. Her focus is to drive growth and adoption of emerging and disruptive technologies in both the commercial market and into the hands of the warfighter. Prior to this post, Ryan worked across national security, venture capital, and technology acceleration. She has advised and invested in early-stage companies throughout her experience in venture capital and scaled accelerator programming for the U.S. Department of Defense and Department of Energy. Ryan began her career as a U.S. Navy officer, leading operations at sea and abroad. National security and innovation have remained central themes throughout her career, with a particular focus on bridging the gap between startups and government to deliver cutting edge capabilities at speed and scale. Ryan holds a Master's in Business Administration (MBA) from The Wharton School and Master's in Security Studies from the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School.

Ophelia Brown is Founder of Blossom Capital, an early-stage VC focused on providing relentless belief and powerful support to Europe’s most visionary founders. Known for her tenacity and passion when working with founders, Ophelia and the Blossom team have invested in stand-outs including Checkout, Pigment, Tines & MoonPay. Blossom’s investment thesis has recently broadened to include defence as one of the early partners in Frankenburg Technologies.

Eveline Buchatskiy is the Founding Managing Partner at D3, a seed-stage fund dedicated to defense technology startups that Dare to Defend Democracy. With over a decade of experience scaling high-growth startups, she has been instrumental in driving innovation and impact in the tech ecosystem. D3’s portfolio features cutting-edge hardware and software technologies actively deployed on the battlefield by the Armed Forces of Ukraine and utilized by allied nations. Over the course of her 13-year investment career, Eveline has backed approximately 100 companies across diverse industries, including during her tenure as Director at Techstars Boston Accelerator. Previously, she was part of the leadership team at airSlate, Ukraine’s unicorn tech company, and served as CEO of APCT, an ultra-capacitor startup, as well as CEO of Ekonomika, a leading media company. Before transitioning into startups and venture capital, Eveline spent a decade as a chemical engineer at Linde (Praxair), a global leader in industrial gases. She holds a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from UC Berkeley, an M.S. in Engineering from the University at Buffalo, and an Executive MBA from INSEAD.

Grace is co-founder of CyLon Ventures, a Board member at 1011 Ventures, and recognised by Fortune Magazine as a Top 13 security investor globally. She was appointed by the UK Defence Secretary as an external reviewer on the UK's 2025 Strategic Defence Review. She is an Associate Fellow at Chatham House, and a Council Member of the European Council on Foreign Relations. Earlier in her career, she spent 10 years in the UK Diplomatic Service. Between 2004-06, she was a foreign policy adviser to Prime Minister Tony Blair in 10 Downing Street.

Melissa is the CEO & Co-Founder of Sitehop, and leads the development and scaling of high-speed, post-quantum encryption hardware and securing data-in-motion without compromising performance. With a background in hardware engineering, Melissa specialises in designing, manufacturing, and scaling deep tech products from concept to market. Passionate about solving complex problems through engineering and advocating for women in STEM, Melissa has seen firsthand the impact of diverse technological perspectives. A proud member of Cyber Runway Ignite and the Women's Engineering Society, Melissa was honored to be recognised as Startup Magazine’s 2023 Inspirational Woman in Industry and 2024’s Most Inspiring Woman in Cyber, as well as leading Sitehop's win in the recent ClimbUK Awards with Cyber Security Innovation of the Year 2025. Melissa is currently expanding Sitehop’s global footprint across the UK, USA, and Brazil and working with enterprises, the public sector and partners to build the networks of the future.

At General Catalyst I lead our European resilience thesis with a focus on seed investments. I’m fascinated by technology that tackles hard physical-world problems and explore incubations and other creative approaches in manufacturing, energy and defence. I began my career at P9 Capital, investing in software. Later I switched sides and founded a field-service software company for renewable-energy installers; Kraken Technologies (Octopus Energy) acquired the business. After the acquisition I ran Kraken’s global implementation team, helping utilities modernise their enterprise tech stack. Building a company from zero to exit shaped my bias toward founder-first thinking and drew me into angel investing.

Rob Harper MBE is the founder and CEO of Rowden Technologies. A former UK Airborne Forces communications engineer, he later worked in defence acquisition before establishing Rowden in 2017. Under his leadership, Rowden has become one of the UK’s fastest-growing engineering companies, designing and delivering sensing and information-sharing systems for defence, intelligence, and national security in degraded and denied environments. As a trusted prime integrator, Rowden leads major UK programmes while expanding sovereign manufacturing and exportable product lines in sensor processing and communications. Rob’s focus is on reshoring critical capability and supporting the emergence of a resilient mid-market, rooted in UK engineering talent and capable of delivering assured systems to domestic and allied markets.

Uwe is a Founding Partner at Project A, where he co-leads the venture capital practice alongside Anton Waitz from the Berlin office. A long-time force in Germany’s tech scene, he began his startup career in 2007 at Rocket Internet, helping scale its early ventures before launching Project A. Today, Uwe is a leading advocate for investing in defence and dual-use technologies in Europe, working to reposition the sector as a vital space for innovation and capital. His contributions to the ecosystem have earned him recognition from Forbes (30 Under 30), Capital (40 Under 40), and Atlantik-Brücke, as well as a seat on the executive board of the German Startup Association. Beyond venture, Uwe has spent nearly two decades engaged in disaster logistics and fieldwork with UN agencies, including missions in the DRC, Ethiopia, and Colombia — underscoring his broader commitment to systems-level impact. Uwe holds a bachelor's degree in Entrepreneurship from WHU — Otto Beisheim School of Management and a Master's degree in Business Engineering from the University of Stuttgart.

Mimi oversees our corporate development, focussed on how we grow Hadean exponentially through key strategic deals, partnerships, and funding opportunities. Mimi was instrumental in early proofs-of-concept for Hadean’s technology - publishing work on protein-protein interactions and COVID-19 pandemic modelling, as well running our world record breaking EVE Aether Wars demos with CCP Games. Before Hadean, Mimi worked in several early stage software startups and studied nanoscience at UCL and the University of Cambridge, working with Nokia on graphene-based flexible electronics for her research.

Alex lives and works full time in Ukraine, with a unique firsthand insight into defence tech innovations deployed onto the battlefield. He works at Vermeer with their visual navigation for unmanned systems, deploying it into combat alongside the military. He also works as venture partner at Darkstar; evaluating hundreds of lethal and dual use capabilities with experts in-country and maintains an extensive network across the Ukrainian Armed Forces, Security Service and Ministries built upon trust, honesty and reliability.

Lital Leshem is an American-Israeli entrepreneur and corporate advisor experienced in rapidly scaling startups. She is the Co-founder of Carbyne, a pioneering emergency communication technology startup, that raised $128 million and attracted notable investors like AT&T Ventures, Hanaco VC, and Founders Fund. Lital also spent five years as a Partner at Frontier Resource Group, focusing on strategic investments in defense, aviation, and cybersecurity across emerging markets. She is a Forbes 30 Under 30 member and a founding member of the UAE Israel Business Council. With 11 years of military and intelligence service as a Major (Res.) in the Southern Command of the IDF, she has demonstrated leadership and strategic acumen, contributing to national security and operational excellence, and has served in the reserves since October 7th. In the wake of October 7th, Lital and her Co-founder, Lee Moser, started Protego Ventures, a $150M early growth fund fueling innovation in Israeli defense technologies.

Philip Lockwood leads strategy and international business for Stark, a new company reshaping the future of defence technology to give NATO a decisive edge. Before Stark, Philip was Head of the NATO Innovation Unit on the Secretary General's staff, where his team was responsible for NATO's overarching agenda on Emerging and Disruptive Technologies. In this role, Philip was the architect and founder of both DIANA--NATO's transatlantic innovation agency--and the 1B NATO Innovation Fund--the world's first multi-sovereign venture capital fund. Previously, he was a tech lawyer with an international law firm and served in the Canadian Armed Forces for 20 years.

Chris Magazzeni is an Investment Director at Lakestar, where he leads investments across Aerospace, Defence, Industrialisation, and Resilience technologies throughout Europe. His work focuses on backing founders building critical capabilities for the future of European security and industrial sovereignty. Chris began his career as an aerospace engineer, completing a PhD in partnership with Rolls-Royce at the University of Oxford, before moving on to work at the European Space Agency. Prior to joining Lakestar, Chris was a VC at IQ Capital, where he led the firm’s aerospace and defence investment practice. In early 2023, Chris co-founded and now co-chairs the UK Defence Investor Network — a cross-sector community that convenes UK defence and security-focused VCs with senior military, political, and end-user stakeholders. The initiative aims to accelerate and inform capital allocation into national security innovation by fostering collaboration between the investment community and key decision-makers.

Cameron is the CEO and Co-founder of Nominal, a dual-use software company that builds tools and data infrastructure for complex hardware development and testing. Before starting Nominal, Cameron was the Head of Defense at Saildrone, a maritime data company and commercial provider of uncrewed surface vehicles (USVs), where he led a team across product, business development, government relations, and strategy, and rapidly scaled commercial efforts with defense and IC customers. He was also an Investor at Lux Capital where he focused on the intersections of emerging technology, venture capital, and national security. At Lux, Cameron worked with portfolio companies to architect go-to- market strategies for national security business and has advised Congressional staff as well as other federal agencies on commercial technology and venture capital. Prior to Lux, Cameron was a product manager and growth lead at a defense technology company where he led a team of software engineers and helped develop computer-vision enabled autonomous cUAS capability (counter unmanned aerial systems). Before this, Cameron served as a Congressional Liaison for the Navy, where he worked with the House Armed Services Committee (HASC) and the subcommittee on Intelligence, Emerging Threats, and Capabilities (IETC). He helped contribute to the 2020 Future of Defense Task Force report and worked with Members of Congress, professional staff, and senior DoD officials to identify and promote emerging technology applications. Cameron served in the US Navy as a fast attack submarine officer and completed multiple Priority One deployments to the North Atlantic and European Command area of responsibility with 450+ days underwater. He holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and a BS and MS in Physics and Nuclear Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Dr. Lorenz Meier is the founder and CEO of Auterion, the operating system for autonomous mass. During the past 15 years he has contributed to the drone industry with a number of important open-source projects such as PX4, MAVLink and QGroundControl. He is also the renowned creator of the Pixhawk autopilot. He is the current Chairman of the Dronecode foundation and has received numerous awards for his work, including the MIT Top 35 Innovators under 35 Award.

Rob is a former soldier, NATO policy advisor, and professor at Johns Hopkins. He served as Chief Innovation Officer at Saab, where he turned strategy into capability. Today, he’s leading the creation of the Defence, Security & Resilience (DSR) Bank—because in a world of rolling crises, resilience needs more than rhetoric; it needs capital.

Sille is the CEO of SmartCap, Estonian state backed investment company focused on venture capital and growth investments with total assets under management close to EUR 500 million. At SmartCap, she is leading the investments of three multi-strategy funds - SmartCap Venture Capital Fund backing emerging regional venture capital funds to diversify capital supply, SmartCap Green Fund dedicated to green transition and SmartCap Defence Fund to bolster growth and innovation in defence industry. Sille has 19 years of experience in asset management as an investment executive. Previously, she was responsible for management of alternative investments in pension funds at Swedbank Investment Funds and managing a fund of funds for HNWIs at Hansa Private Equity Partners. She serves as a board member of the Estonian Venture Capital Association.

John leads on Adoption for the NATO Innovation Fund – getting our portfolio companies’ technology into the hands of end-users across the Alliance. To do so, he works closely with ministries of defence and governments across NATO as well as with a broad spectrum of industry partners. The Adoption team’s insights into future defence and national security requirements also help shape the Fund’s investments. Prior to joining the NATO Innovation Fund, John spent over three decades in the Armed Forces and government. He first joined the Army as a Reservist in 1989 and, after studying Architectural Engineering at the University of Leeds, joined the Regular Army as a Royal Engineers officer. As a junior officer, he completed tours with Commando forces, Gurkhas, bomb disposal and close-support engineers. He deployed to Northern Ireland, Norway, Oman, Kosovo, Bosnia and Afghanistan. His final two tours in uniform were in command of 8 Engineer Brigade and as Chief of Joint Force Operations leading the UK’s crisis response headquarters. John left the Army in 2020 to join the Civil Service. He spent two years in Defence Intelligence, before a six-month loan to 10 Downing Street. He then returned to MOD as Director Defence Innovation where he led Defence’s innovation portfolio, before leaving the civil service in November 2024 to join the NATO Innovation Fund. Outside work John is a keen indoor rower, cyclist and runner. He is married to Nina, a broadcast meteorologist and teacher, and they have four children.

As a Principal Investor at Shield Capital, David Rothzeid is responsible for identifying and evaluating high-potential startups at the nexus of commercial innovation and national security. With over $350 million in assets under management, Shield Capital partners with visionary founders to scale transformative technologies. David sits on multiple boards and leverages his expertise to help portfolio companies navigate the complexities of federal procurement and access key government markets. Before joining Shield, David spent thirteen years in the United States Air Force, where he held various assignments in Space Command, Air Force Materiel Command, Special Operations Command, the Defense Innovation Unit, and the Pentagon, separating at the rank of Major. He continues to serve in the Air Force Reserves at the Pentagon. David resides in Washington, D.C. with his wife, Lauren, and their Pit bull, Bentley.

Mr. Salm is the CEO of Frankenburg Technologies, a producer of affordable, mass-manufacturable missile systems. He is also a member of the board of the NATO Innovation Fund (NIF). Previously, he served as Permanent Secretary of the Estonian Ministry of Defence, overseeing capability development, defence policy, acquisitions, and human resources. Before that, he was Director General of the Estonian Centre for Defence Investment, responsible for acquisitions and infrastructure for the Estonian Defence Forces. Internationally, he was the chief negotiator for the European Defence Fund in 2017.

Ragnar Sass is the Co-founder of Estonia’s fifth unicorn, Pipedrive CRM, which exited to Vista Equity in 2020. He is an active angel investor with a portfolio of 50+ companies. Ragnar is also the founder of Help99, an NGO that has delivered aid to over 200 Ukrainian military units. Currently, he is building the Defence Tech ecosystem with Darkstar, focusing on bringing combat-proven products from Ukraine to global markets.

Oluseun revolutionized the sector with his 3D-printed rocket engines, becoming the first American to launch one in 2017 at Rocketlab USA as employee number 15. He spearheaded 3D-printing initiatives at Argonne National Lab, Virgin Orbit, and 3D Systems’. A true innovator, Oluseun was recognized as one of Forbes’ 30 under 30 for his transformative contributions of consistently pushing the aerospace industry’s boundaries.