On Thursday (30 June 2022), at a signing ceremony hosted by NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, Leaders and Ministers from 22 Allied countries* launched NATO’s Innovation Fund, the world’s first multi-sovereign venture capital fund.
“This fund is unique”, the Secretary General said, “with a 15-year timeframe, the NATO Innovation Fund will help bring to life those nascent technologies that have the power to transform our security in the decades to come, strengthening the Alliance’s innovation ecosystem and bolstering the security of our one billion citizens.”
The Fund will invest 1 billion euros in early-stage start-ups and other venture capital funds developing dual-use emerging technologies of priority to NATO. These include: artificial intelligence; big-data processing; quantum-enabled technologies; autonomy; biotechnology and human enhancement; novel materials; energy; propulsion and space.
The Fund will complement NATO’s Defence Innovation Accelerator for the North Atlantic – or DIANA – which will support the development and adaptation of dual-use emerging technologies to critical security and defence challenges. There has also been significant progress for DIANA at the 2022 Madrid Summit where Allies agreed that innovators participating in DIANA’s programs will have access to a network of more than 9 Accelerator Sites and more than 63 Test Centres across Europe and North America.
*Belgium; Bulgaria; Czech Republic; Denmark; Estonia; Germany; Greece; Hungary; Iceland; Italy; Latvia; Lithuania; Luxembourg; Netherlands; Norway; Poland; Portugal; Romania; Slovakia; Spain; Türkiye; United Kingdom.