Helsing
Munich defence company building AI software, the HX-2 strike drone, the SG-1 Fathom underwater glider and the CA-1 Europa uncrewed combat jet.
3 articles
What It Is
Helsing is a Munich defence company that started in 2021 writing artificial intelligence software for other makers’ weapons and now builds its own. Its founders are Torsten Reil, Gundbert Scherf and Niklas Köhler; Reil and Scherf are co-chief executives. Daniel Ek, the Spotify founder, and Tom Enders co-chair its board.
Its main customers so far are Germany and Ukraine, and it has British and US operations. Helsing says internal ethics guidelines decide which countries it sells to, and that a human stays “in or on the loop” for critical decisions.
Key Products
HX-2 is a catapult-launched strike drone. Helsing says it weighs 12 kg, reaches 220 km/h and can hit armour, artillery and buildings up to 100 km away. Onboard AI is meant to find the target when jamming cuts the link to the operator. Altra, Helsing’s reconnaissance-strike software, coordinates several HX-2s with other sensors and artillery. Germany financed 4,000 of an earlier munition, HF-1, for Ukraine.
SG-1 Fathom is an autonomous underwater glider for tracking submarines, paired with Helsing’s Lura acoustic AI. Helsing opened an 18,000 sq ft factory in Plymouth to build it in November 2025.
CA-1 Europa is an uncrewed combat jet in the three-to-five-tonne class, unveiled in September 2025 at Grob Aircraft in Tussenhausen. Hensoldt signed a partnership in February 2026 to equip it with Hensoldt radar, optronics and self-protection systems. Centaur, an AI pilot, and Cirra, an AI for electronic warfare, are software products that also go into the aircraft.
Business and Financial Position
Helsing is private and publishes no revenue. It raised €600 million in June 2025 at a €12 billion valuation, led by Ek’s Prima Materia. On 13 July 2026 it announced a $1.8 billion Series E at an $18 billion valuation, with Dragoneer, Lightspeed, Goldman Sachs Alternatives, JPMorganChase and CPP Investments among the investors. The company says it remains predominantly European-owned.
It has grown by acquisition as well as in-house. In June 2025 it agreed to buy Grob Aircraft, a Bavarian maker of composite military and civil aircraft with about 275 staff, for an undisclosed price; Helsing now calls Grob a subsidiary. Its drones come from what it calls Resilience Factories. The first, in southern Germany, was completed in December 2024 with capacity for more than 1,000 HX-2s a month. The Plymouth plant was the first in Britain, and in July 2026 West Virginia announced a $50 million first investment for one in Martinsburg to build the HX-2.
In February 2025 Helsing said it would build 6,000 HX-2s for Ukraine. On 25 February 2026 the Bundestag budget committee approved a €540 million loitering-munition package split between Helsing and Stark, capped at €1 billion per supplier. The Bundeswehr signed purchase contracts with both the next day, and the brigade in Lithuania is first to receive the drones, from 2027.
Why It Matters
Helsing’s $18 billion valuation is a bet on software, while its hardware record is still thin and disputed. In January 2026 Bloomberg reported an internal German army presentation, dated November 2025, describing HX-2s that failed to take off and lacked planned AI guidance features. Reports said Ukraine and Germany had paused further orders. Helsing said it was unaware of the document, rejected the findings and disputed that Ukraine had paused.
Germany bought the HX-2 five weeks later, under framework contracts the Bundeswehr can cancel if a maker fails to prove performance at set milestones. How many of the 6,000 drones reached Ukraine has not been published. The CA-1 Europa has not yet flown, and its first flight is targeted for 2027.
