Post by Thomas Allgeyer

Billions are flooding into European defense tech.   But the wiring underneath still runs through China.   That's the tension sitting inside this edition of Defense Tech CW 28/29.   70 posts on defense tech this week. 33 new voices in the mix. Here's what stood out to us at Frenus GmbH, where we track emerging market signals across defence innovation, autonomous systems, procurement shifts, and sovereign technology capabilities:   European defense funding is surging: Helsing raised $1.8bn, STARK raised €500m, Lakestar closed €262.2M, and EU-wide spending is set to hit €454bn in 2026 Consolidation is accelerating fast, with Lockheed buying Ultra Maritime, Anduril landing a Poland missile deal, and ARX Robotics merging with Roboneers for Ukraine's UGV push Counter-drone is scaling on cost-asymmetry, led by Skapion, Airbus, and BAE, with NATO backing it at $40bn Autonomous maritime warfare is expanding: the Navy's first combat drone strike, Anduril's Dive-XL UUVs, and Lockheed's Saildrone integration all landed this week Europe's drone supply chain still runs through China, and the new EU-Ukraine Drone Alliance is one attempt to build around it. Ukraine's real bottleneck is training, not production, with 20,000 operators covering 2.3 million contracted drones   Our takeaway: capital and platforms in Europe are scaling faster than the systems needed to run them.   Featured read: Angus Bean argues that NATO's $40bn counter-drone commitment marks a shift from scattered pilots to real procurement.    Is your roadmap counting on Europe solving this, or working around it?   Thanks for sharing your insights! Enjoy the read!