StrictlyVC Download: Why Eric Slesinger, a former CIA officer, is now funding European defense tech

Today, we're bringing you an episode of our sister podcast, StrictlyVC Download. StrictlyVC's Alex Gove caught up with Eric Slesinger from 201 Ventures, a venture capital firm focused on seed-stage defense tech startups in Europe. They discuss Eric's journey from CIA to investor and how he recognized the untapped potential in European defense tech while others were dismissive, and how he's working to overcome the cultural taboo that once made defense investments "bad manners" in European VC circles. Equity will be back on Friday with our weekly news roundup, so stay tuned! Equity is TechCrunch’s flagship podcast, produced by Theresa Loconsolo, and posts every Wednesday and Friday. Subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. You also can follow Equity on X and Threads, at @EquityPod. For the full episode transcript, for those who prefer reading over listening, check out our full archive of episodes here. Credits: Equity is produced by Theresa Loconsolo with editing by Kell. We’d also like to thank TechCrunch’s audience development team. Thank you so much for listening, and we'll talk to you next time. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Anthony Ha?

  This episode of Equity is brought to you by Schneider Electric. Schneider Electric, advancing energy tech.

• 0:06Speaker 01

  Hi, I'm Connie Loizas.

• 0:07Speaker 02

  And this is Alex Gove.

• 0:08Speaker 01

  And this is Strictly VC Download.

• 0:20Speaker 02

  Eric, it's great to meet you. So happy you can join us from Madrid.

• 0:24Speaker 03

  Happy to be here, Alex. I'm looking forward to the conversation today.

• 0:26Speaker 02

  For our listeners, Eric is the founder of 201 Ventures, which invests in seed-stage defense tech startups focusing on Europe. He's a former officer at the CIA and has a BS in MS in Mechanical Engineering from Stanford and an MBA from Harvard Business School. He worked briefly at Incutel, the CIA's venture arm, and Mundi Ventures before starting 201. Eric, I first learned about you from an excellent profile in The New York Times. You were an officer at the CIA for five and a half years. From what I understand, you were like Q in the James Bond movies, developing gadgets and software for agents in the field. What made you take a step back from that and turn to VC?

• 1:07Speaker 03

  It was the best first job ever. The way I describe it, and I described it this way in the article, which, by the way, was for someone who professionally avoided the media for so many years of my life at the CIA, was a really fun way to come out with the fund and launch 201 Ventures. And just as I described it, it was like walking into a Santa's workshop. I left because I noticed that the private sector was increasingly playing a role in this competition that I previously had understood, really, to just be a government-to-government competition. But what became obvious more so every day was that the private sector was playing such a big role here. I know this sounds so obvious to most of the audience, the podcast who works most in the private sector, I'm assuming. But when you're where I was in government, at a place that really is like super-mission focused

• 1:51Speaker 03

  and sometimes can be somewhat insular compared to private sector peers, this was an awakening moment for me. And so that was when I popped my head up and decided that I should really go figure this out because I had gone straight from being an engineer in school into the public sector. And so I had this huge gap, and I felt like I had a gap in my knowledge on how the private sector actually worked.

• 2:08Speaker 02

  It's interesting because investing in defense tech deals used to be unpopular for VCs because of government bureaucracy, customer concentration, the fact that you had to get in right with the right four-star general in order to move your project forward. But now it seems downright sexy. Is it companies like Palantir and Anduril that have really moved the needle and made it more exciting?

• 2:30Speaker 03

  I think so. It's more than the companies themselves, it's the people that are joining them. When I left Stanford to join CIA, it was also quite an unpopular time to do so. The Edward Snowden news story was at the peak probably around that time, and most people were looking at the intelligence community in the US with quite a bit of caution, especially those in Silicon Valley during that time. But what ended up happening was, I think, Palantir and Anduril for sure were the vanguards here in the US to do this. But at those early days, it was still like the zealots. People were recruiting their friends that believed what they believed, that the US ought to have the best technology at its fingertips for those defending US interests and democracy. Obviously, I believe this now here in Europe.

• 3:13Speaker 03

  But I think what really tipped the scales finally in recent years was that more and more people were able to point to their friends who are now working at these companies. And whereas you used to be probably two or three connections away, you're now one connection away. And that made it so much more personal. And you could say, well, I know that person, they have a great set of ethics, and I trust their judgment, and they're going to work at this company, that 10 years ago was vilified perhaps. Maybe I should rethink my approach to what that company is doing, what they stand for. And I think that's the best thing of all. I try to do this with my friends who maybe look at the intelligence community in this kind of way, whereas, you know, some people have preconceptions of what it does, preconceived notions of what it used to do, and think, does it still do that? And I used to always, in the early days when I left, say like, look, I was there. You know me really

• 3:57Speaker 03

  well. This is what I believed in, and this is the set of ethics that I brought to that work. And these are the rules that we worked within. And you should hopefully have a lot of comfort knowing that the people that are, whether it's Langley or Fort Meade or whoever else within the US side, that are working in these agencies that work under a veil of quite a bit of secrecy, for good reason, that they're doing good work with good intentions in large part. And I think that was really important. It's cool to see that the page has really turned in the US and now here in Europe as well.

• 4:23Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, you were a trailblazer in more ways than one. Not only were you leaving Harvard Business School to pursue an interest in defense tech, but you were interested from a very early stage in defense tech in Europe, which traditionally has not bought as much defense technology as the US, not by a long shot. And yet you saw the end of the peace dividend, the protection that the US has afforded Europe and the resulting ability of Europe to not invest as heavily in defense spending. What gave you the confidence to think, hey, there's a market here. I can navigate all of these different governments in Europe and as an American and make a business out of this?

• 5:04Speaker 03

  Well, confidence now, maybe people would have called it foolishness a few years ago. I think the conviction was there. That hasn't changed. If anything, it's only gotten higher for me. The idea was that I have always enjoyed going where other people tend to not want to go. That was why I enjoyed the work at CA so much. A couple of things that people there used to always say was go where others don't go and do what they can't do. And one is kind of a result of the other a lot of times. And so when Europe was basically just being memed, and I laugh at the memes too, they're funny for sure. But those memes mask what is a super powerful set of facts out here. And those are, one, Europe has individual entrepreneurs that are just as hungry and just as high conviction

• 5:48Speaker 03

  as just as smart as anywhere else in the world. Two, European governments waited way too long to rethink what the arrangement on their own security meant and therefore hadn't actually taken a critical eye towards it. And three, Europe was quickly being seen and will, in my opinion, continue to be the site of serious gray zone competition. And so when I looked at these three factors a few years ago, it became really obvious to me, actually, to say, okay, let me go out there, especially with the fact being that everyone else was kind of laughing at it, at least from the US side. That's really not the case here, by the way. People are not laughing at it and there's many people here who are taking it very seriously. But the idea that people would be laughing at memes in Europe, to me meant there's some deeper truth here that needs to be investigated. And I felt it strongly enough to move out here,

• 6:33Speaker 03

  to build my career around it and to launch a firm around it as well.

• 6:37Speaker 02

  In 2022, you started something called the European Defense Investor Network, which now includes a large swath of VCs and entrepreneurs, policymakers. You wrote in a Medium post in March of the following year about how your European VC colleagues were afraid to talk about their defense-related investments. Has that attitude changed?

• 7:02Speaker 03

  Yes, it's changed. And man, it couldn't have come quick enough. It should have changed far earlier than it did. For a long time, this type of investing in Europe was seen as uncouth, something that should be done but not spoken about perhaps, and certainly not spoken about in polite company at the dinner table. You would hear about it behind the closed doors of the clubs in London and in small investment clubs, but it didn't have the air of a celebration of patriotism that I was more used to in the US. I think that was a huge disservice to the founders that were building here. It was definitely resulted in many founders thinking about it, deciding not to build a company in the space.

• 7:40Speaker 02

  I think your post was entitled "manners" because it was considered bad manners to talk about it.

• 7:45Speaker 03

  That's right. It's exactly right. It was considered bad manners. I think this is so silly. I thought it then, I think it now. I think it's so silly. I think it's ridiculous, the idea that one could talk about, I don't know, I guess these aren't my dinner conversations, but I'm sort of making a caricature of a high-society person in somewhere around here in Europe that's talking about bond rates or whether their new electric car has a charging port here or there. But when they talk about defense of democracy and applying technology to defense, that's considered bad manners at the table. I'm exaggerating a little bit. There's a kernel of truth there. And what I tried to do with the network was kind of be a little bit louder, be willing to break a few dishes as I pounded a fist on the table and say like, "This is crazy. This is nuts. Are we in crazy land here? Is everyone taking crazy pills?

• 8:29Speaker 03

  Because this is happening on our doorstep. Ukraine is like right there. How are we so willing to just shut the door on these conversations? And from an allocator's perspective, how are we so unwilling to allocate here?"

• 8:42Speaker 02

  So what was the trigger that really changed people's perception of defense tech investments in Europe and made it more of a polite conversation to talk about your defense deals? Was it the continuing atrocities in Ukraine? Was it the Trump administration and their denigration of Europe and the fact that they seemed to be less willing to support European defense efforts?

• 9:06Speaker 03

  Yes. It was yes to both of those things. I think it's also yes to frankly, like the fact that this is a place where one can make money as a venture capitalist or as an investor. And I think that that matters too. That definitely matters. Increasing the volume on the public conversation behind this, it's not me, it's many others, certainly helps. Having institutions like NATO, stand-up funds, having other LPs start to change their positions on this definitely helped. And then finally, I think the most important signal, at least in the VC community, is the founders. Having more founders come into the space and having repeat founders choose to build company number two, company number three in this sector in Europe was a huge change. And those general partners that previously

• 9:50Speaker 03

  backed those founders and the LPs behind those funds are seeing this over the last couple of years and saying, oh, okay, maybe if I was a little bit uncomfortable speaking up then, there's more of a chorus around me now and I feel more comfortable speaking up now. My response to that is like, great, come on in, the water's fine. Like, no need to sort of like yuck that yum. Like, great, awesome. Even if it's a little bit late, come on in.

• 10:10Speaker 02

  This might be a little bit crass to say, but one interesting point about where you are in Europe is that Ukraine is essentially one giant testing lab, isn't it? I mean, there are all these new technologies that are being tested in the field in real time. Do you find yourself comparing notes with a mix of VCs and intelligence agents about new companies that you're looking at?

• 10:33Speaker 03

  Yeah, I mean, I should admit, my conversations with intelligence officers are much, much less these days and more with founders and VCs. I've largely stepped out of my old world. But the idea that Ukraine is a place where technology is being tested not only daily, but at a pace that's so much faster than anywhere else, that is very real. Part of the challenges of VC is to sift through the noise and find the signal there because a lot of people are claiming that they've been quote-unquote "battle-tested" in Ukraine. My job and the job of all the investors here is to really get the ground truth on that and say, what does that really mean? Did you fly in a protected field outside of Kiev or were you on the front lines and actually having like real results? And where is that sustained over time? That's like a worthy set of diligence questions to ask and find out the answers to.

• 11:19Speaker 03

  But the result has been, yeah, that these technologies are being fielded way, way faster. And Ukrainian entrepreneurs and soldiers are building companies around them.

• 11:29Speaker 02

  Let's talk a little bit about your firm. Last year, you started 21 Ventures. My understanding is that you're raising a $22 million fund and you're at the closing end of that process and that the NATO Innovation Fund is a significant backer of your firm. Have you closed the fund?

• 11:45Speaker 03

  Yeah, I'm super excited. We're closing on eight days from now.

• 11:49Speaker 02

  Congratulations. Wow.

• 11:50Speaker 03

  Thank you. I'm really excited. By the time the article ran, we were over the target and all closed up on new LPs. I've been very, very fortunate to have the NATO Innovation Fund as the anchor. I was very excited and proud that we were the first fund that they backed, although we went unannounced for over a year as we got the rest of it built. They've been a great LP, a great partner in everything from building the fund to making investments and so on. For me, it's Fund One. I'm a solo GP. This is the prototype fund. This is proof of what I say I can do and make some great investments.

• 12:20Speaker 02

  How in the world were you able to get the NATO Innovation Fund to back a first-time entrepreneur who is a former CIA agent from the US?

• 12:30Speaker 03

  I'll tell you my best guess. I think as with all the LPs of the fund, you know, I think I have my idea of why they joined, but I never know the reason that got them over the line at the end of the day. I like to think that it's a strong alignment with the mission and the differentiation that the fund had in Europe. But for the NATO Innovation Fund in particular, what ended up happening was in the network that I run, the European Defense Investor Network, it grew slowly. So it only started with like eight people, it was eight friends in a chat group, and it's just grown, no marketing before this, organically, one by one, just up to 125 plus now. When the NATO Innovation Fund was being set up, they did this big search and they brought the managing partners on board. And it turned out that four of the five founding partners of the NATO Innovation Fund were already in my network.

• 13:14Speaker 03

  It just like was this funny thing where the thing got launched and all of a sudden I know four of them pretty well and they had kind of known me well by that point. They had watched me in this network and manage it and bring in speakers and bring in founders and you tried to educate everyone and grow the ecosystem. So that was just luck, right? That was the stars aligning and eventually they came knocking and said, hey, like I think we should talk. And I said, no, no, you don't. Guys, I'm a solo GP Fund One. I know you need way more. I'm not for you. And they said, no, no, no, let's, let's really talk. And that was the start of a great relationship.

• 13:47Speaker 02

  That made them even more interested.

• 13:49Speaker 03

  Maybe. I don't know. It was a really great part. It is a great partnership. I was very fortunate that that worked out.

• 13:53Speaker 02

  Do they make direct investments too, or are they a fund of funds?

• 13:57Speaker 03

  They do. So the fund of funds pockets about, I think, 20% of the whole thing. The rest is direct. So direct is their bread and butter. And then the fund of funds is another piece, but it's a hugely important piece because part of their mandate is to do what they call capacity building. That's the term they use. And so that is investing in funds like mine and like I think at this point six others, if I have the numbers correctly. That didn't exist. And certainly there's a good argument to me that 201 may not have existed if not for their anchor check. And so in this case, it's building capacity for new GPs to be investing in new founders here in Europe.

• 14:27Speaker 02

  So you've made eight investments to date. Is that correct?

• 14:30Speaker 03

  That's right.

• 14:31Speaker 02

  And do you have any overlap with NATO Innovation Fund in any of those deals?

• 14:35Speaker 03

  Currently, no. I wouldn't be surprised if that changes soon. I do usually pre-seed and seed. They're about at stage beyond me. But of course, part of the fund of fund strategy that they have is to have visibility into what's happening in earlier stages. The nice thing that NATO Innovation Fund does and part of their mandate as well, in addition to this capacity building, was be able to bridge the valley of death on these companies here in Europe. And so sort of come like late A to B and C, they're able to cut bigger checks. Funds like mine certainly wouldn't. And that previously here in Europe, there were fewer options to find investors for those rounds. And so I hope that the answer to that question will change soon.

• 15:10Speaker 02

  Are there other defense tech VCs that you tend to align with and invest with?

• 15:16Speaker 03

  I've done two co-investments. The really good friend and close colleague, like professional sort of colleague of mine, Nathan at Air Street Capital, Nathan writes the really awesome state of AI report. Nathan's become a really great friend and was an amazing mentor. As I launched 201, he went through it. Being a solo GP himself, he's on Fund Two now. And I've always been happy to be co-investing with Nathan. It's like, it's absolute joy. Other than that, I actually tend to, weirdly enough, even though I run the network, I kind of keep to myself. When I'm out there looking at stuff, I find that I might get excited about something that others don't, or I've gone down a rabbit hole that may be a little bit early for everyone else. I'm fine with that. That's where I enjoy spending time in the fringes there. For what it's worth, that just leads to a little bit less overlap with some of my peers.

• 16:00Speaker 02

  So is that how you find deals? In terms of deal sourcing, is it through burrowing into those rabbit holes, finding something that you're really interested in, and just digging, digging, digging? Or are you finding it through your connections? Talk to me about how you found, for example, Delian, which is building surveillance towers to detect autonomous threats. How did that come across your transit?

• 16:22Anthony Ha?

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• 16:59Speaker 03

  Yeah, so Delian is one example. For me, it's very much a barbell. It's like two ends of the spectrum on sourcing. One is network. And Delian actually came through through Marathon Ventures, who's a fantastic firm in Athens. They're part of the network. They're part of the European Defense Investor Network. They were one of the original, probably 20 members, because they had invested in Delian. And they were taking this huge risk in Greece as like one of the very first VCs to be investing in a defense tech company. Demetrius, the founder of Delian's, awesome, PhD in computer vision, five years at Apple. He sort of imported that Silicon Valley like speed and culture back to Athens. And they're just hiring the absolute best talent in AI in Athens and in London now. And I know the partner from Marathon was like, hey, I've got this awesome company. Can we circulate it? Can we talk about it within the network? Absolutely. That is what this

• 17:43Speaker 03

  network is here for. And because we had provided the venue to help Share the idea and share the company with others. We were then invited to the round and that was a great proof point for me early on that this was something worth having. Now, the other end of the spectrum is like exactly what you described first there, which is going deep on a thesis and like going down a super long internet rabbit hole. I love that. I love to go out and hunt on something that I think is interesting. What we've done recently there is a new endeavor on something in the Arctic. And so we're building Arctic technology. This is a place where fits the thesis of the firm. It's just one of these gray zone areas that has a dislocation in the market because it's not well understood. And there's a real technology solution to be built here and that just requires months of building and searching and we ended up incubating the company internally. It's usually one or the other.

• 18:28Speaker 02

  Yeah, I encourage our listeners to check out your Medium posts because you talk a lot about some of the areas that you're interested in and where you would like to see startups. And I believe one of the areas you said was acclimatizing technology to the Arctic.

• 18:41Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 18:41Speaker 02

  That was a focus area of yours. What about Polar Mist? It's a Swedish startup that produces maritime drones. How did you find that one?

• 18:50Speaker 03

  Polar Mist is an awesome company. They are one of the latest investments we did. We led that round and in fact co-led with Nathan at Air Street. Polar Mist was a funny one because it happened way faster than normal for me. Typically with the investments I've made, I've known the founders for at least a couple of years. The last investment I did, I've known the founders since 2020 and she and I worked together in fact, and so we know each other pretty well. And she's building something really cool here in Europe. The investment in Polar Mist came from a tip from an LP and the LP said, hey, I've got this family member who is a professor at the school. And the professor has these awesome students that come out of his program. You should just have a conversation. An email led to getting on a flight the next day and I walked into this apartment in Lund, Sweden, which is just across the water from Copenhagen.

• 19:32Speaker 03

  And at first I was like, wait, I must not be in the right place. This is, I thought, no, no, no, this is the right place. Gustav said, no, you're in the right place. This is great. And the living room was just all the furniture pushed to the wall, all the couches up against the wall, desks in the middle, just covered with GPUs. And I turned to the kitchen and there's a boat in the kitchen. And then I turned to what I think was the bedroom, which had been repurposed to be a nap area to some degree. And I was like, Oh, this is, I'm at home. This was me in grad school. I'm so at home here. And we ended up issuing a term sheet just a few days later. And Polar Mist is building amazing maritime surface vessels. Comms, dark navigation, so able to navigate autonomously with no external comms, not even GPS.

• 20:14Speaker 03

  This is a company that's really needed in Europe. The cool thing with Polar Mist and being in Sweden is that Swedish archipelagos and thousands of islands are incredible training ground. And you can sort of let your imagination take you to where else in the world have similar geography that might be useful in the future. And the company's just absolutely off to like a bang of a start. It's early days, but really exciting to support Gustav and Gabriel as they build.

• 20:37Speaker 02

  We've talked about a couple of areas of technology, maritime drones and detection of autonomous devices. What other areas are you really interested in? I'm sure that AI has had a big impact on some of the deals that you're looking at. Also, hypersonic vehicles is probably another category. The floor is yours. What are some of the areas that you're really interested in?

• 20:58Speaker 03

  So the areas I find myself pulled towards are those that exist within, and I use the term before, within gray zones. So the underlying thesis of the firm is that gray zones create really interesting market dislocations. And gray zone competition is happening at scale in Europe, and it will for the next couple of decades. These market dislocations, whether they're price inefficiencies or a government playing a larger role in a market that it might otherwise, if not for wanting a sovereign capability. Semiconductors are a perfect example of that. These gray zone dislocations actually are a good form of alpha. Historically, I think that they were capitalized on there by macro hedge funds largely. We would find these dislocations exploited in public markets. And what I'm trying to do with 201 is to show that actually

• 21:38Speaker 03

  these dislocations and these inefficiencies that gray zones create have actually moved into private markets over the last, maybe the last decade or so. I find myself really attracted towards this type of competition. I try to study them and then go after them. So hypersonics are certainly an area that's where you're going to see serious, not only sort of governmental interest because of a need for sovereign capability, but a push now that advanced computational methods allow for the really gnarly control systems and thermal systems that you need to build sort of the triad of a hypersonic vehicle, which is go fast, go hot, and go straight. Or at least be able to control where you're going. So go fast, you need propulsion systems. Go hot, you need good thermal systems. And go straight, you need good control systems.

• 22:20Speaker 03

  And so I try to focus on companies that are building the harder of that set of three. Other areas that I like are things that happen in the subsurface. So we've backed a company in hypersonics, amazing company in Munich called Hypersonica, two PhDs, Mark and Philip, that met in Oxford in the hypersonics lab. So it's like already members of a small club, actually working together, and an even smaller club now, and building a cool company in Munich. And then we've backed a company in subsurface mapping. So imagine Google Maps for everything under your feet. Doesn't really exist.

• 22:48Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 22:48Speaker 03

  And yet, there's so much of our infrastructure that exists under your feet. And it's a really tricky sort of map data structure to enable, because you can't necessarily reference to streets, like all the rest of our maps that we use daily do. That's an area where there's a combination of clear national interests, a little bit of defense interest, way more commercial interest as well, but a cool technology problem to solve behind it all, which is the meaty thing that I want to be able to back when I find a founder doing that.

• 23:14Speaker 02

  You said that, like any VC, you know, you're in this for companies that can make money. How are you able to deduce whether or not there's real commercial demand from a government for a certain technology? Do the companies that you invest in have to have dual-use capabilities so that their technology is also applicable to consumers or the non-military world? How do you think about monetizing the technologies that you're developing?

• 23:41Speaker 03

  One of the things I learned when I was at Incutel is that Incutel's best-performing companies actually were those that had really large commercial markets, like a large database company like MongoDB, for example, where you've got a huge commercial market. But yeah, there's also the small federal pocket of the company. I don't have sort of one dogma or another. It doesn't have to be just defense tech. What I want to see is that there's a clear demand signal from government. And where I hope to have a little bit of edge, as someone who's worked on building that on the government side, is that there's no conspiracy here, but government generally is ahead on some of this technology. Without naming specific ones, the research labs in the US and here in Europe are quite forward on this.

• 24:18Speaker 02

  Can't you give us a hint on some of those technologies?

• 24:21Speaker 03

  Yeah, invisible cloaks. No, it's things like, things that advanced materials enable, things that advanced sensing enables. There's a whole host of things. And there's domains that previously were considered to be kind of impossible to play within. But in fact, we do play within them. Those domains. If I feel like I have enough of a signal or judgment that there's a clear demand from government for this technology, or there will be in the near future, I feel really confident going in. Usually, it's not just me doing that. Usually, the founders done their homework as well, or they felt it because they've worked in it as well. That gives me sort of what I need enough to take the next step with the company. It's not going to be like the thing that leads to an investment decision. It's not going to be the thing that leads me not to make an investment, but it's something that I want to have at least an understanding of. Is this happening now? Do we need to wait two years and sort of work

• 25:04Speaker 03

  the field and actually help build this market and do some lobbying to make it happen? That's okay, too. We just want to have an understanding.

• 25:11Speaker 02

  Do you think that the companies in your space have a longer runway than sort of a traditional non-military startup investment? In other words, is there more development time that needs to go into building the technology because of all of the security ramifications, et cetera?

• 25:26Speaker 03

  Yes, I think so. And that's actually tough, by the way. That doesn't always jive with the idea of a 10-year venture fund lifecycle. That's a real thing that we sort of have to square. You can do things to try to accelerate or bend a little bit. I think that European companies ought to be doing more lobbying at much earlier stages. I think that there needs to be a bigger effort to shape the field and shape the market here to make sure that the new innovations are falling on welcome ears, because those ears are certainly being courted by the large companies that have been around here in Europe for much longer. When you have dual use, the real mistake is when you don't know or can't decide which use to start with, and you end up doing both at once too early. That's a recipe for disaster. I think focus early on is really helpful, and companies that don't make that decision end up sort of toddling along for too many years before they figure it out. So yeah,

• 26:10Speaker 03

  that's a risk, and I think it's one that can be mitigated with just like enough foresight and some clear, firm strategic decisions to focus early on.

• 26:17Speaker 02

  So you are about to close your first fund, and from what the New York Times says, you're already contemplating raising a second fund. Will that fund be bigger than this one? And are you going to bring on partners? Or how do you see your venture growing?

• 26:32Speaker 03

  My focus right now is on delivering an awesome Fund One. The fundraising is a great milestone to have completed, but that's kind of the easy part. It's like, all right, the role of a fund is not to raise money. The role of a fund is to multiply that money. And in my case, the role of the fund has three goals. Every one of my LPs knows them, to state them very clearly for Fund One. One, do the mission. Advance freedom and autonomy in Europe, and that'll be through the portfolio companies that are in the fund. Number two, build the best venture product out there. So be the category leader among founders and co-investors for our category here in Europe. And number three, build a financial product that punches way above its weight with LPs. So look and feel institutional. I want LPs that look at Fund One to be shocked that I'm a solo GP on Fund One.

• 27:12Speaker 02

  Can I just ask you a question about Anduril? How is Anduril perceived in the defense tech community? It's really, seems like the one defense tech company that most people can name, but I'm just curious what insiders think of it.

• 27:26Speaker 03

  I think it's perceived very positively. A lot of people look at Anduril and say, this is a company that is fighting the good fight on a couple of fronts. One, being able to communicate to a normal audience on what it means to defend a country. Whether that's the US or any other country, the ability to communicate clearly, this is how technology plays into defense. They actually communicate that really well. Number two, fighting cost-plus contracts and saying, look, we're going to go firm fixed price. We're going to do like any mom and pop shop does, which is set a price. And if we can't build it for cheaper, that's on us. And if we do build it for cheaper, great, we're in business. That seems to be common sense that is lost on a lot of the traditional defense primes.

• 28:07Speaker 03

  And number three, this is one that takes in and rapidly applies new technology to problem sets. The idea that a sub needs to take 25 years to field should be rethought. And Anduril has rethought that, and I think that that's pretty refreshing. So very commonly, what I hear from founders out here, and what I believe is that Anduril has shown a spotlight on really important problems that exist here and address them in smart ways.

• 28:33Speaker 02

  That's great. Well, listen, Eric, I've taken up way too much of your time. It's really been fascinating talking to you and learning about what you're doing and also the huge market that you're addressing. Can't wait to see what's next with 201.

• 28:45Speaker 03

  Thanks, Alex. I really appreciate it and enjoyed the conversation today.

• 28:48Speaker 02

  All right. Take care.

• 28:54Speaker 02

  The Strictly VC Download podcast is hosted by TechCrunch editor-in-chief Connie Loyzos and me, Alex Gove of Strictly VC. Strictly VC Download is produced by Maggie Nye with editing assistance by Teresa Long Consolo and Kel. Thanks for listening. We'll see you back here next week.