Amid increased momentum for defense, the NATO Innovation Fund refreshes its investment team
In a context of increased military spending across NATO members, investment in dual-use technology has skyrocketed since the initiative was first announced in 2021. Once a no-go-zone for institutional investors, defense and resilience tech last reached an all-time high of 10% of all VC funding in Europe, where nearly all NIF's backers are located.
This booming interest should have given NIF a first-mover advantage, but the fund was hampered by management challenges and a series of high-profile departures. After the 2025 NATO Summit in The Hague reaffirmed its importance last June, NIF is now emerging with an almost entirely new investment team. It is composed of three partners.
While NIF originally had four partners and one managing partner, a person familiar with NIF said that this flat, three-partner model will be the structure in place for the foreseeable future, suggesting that no new hires are to be expected. These two appointments had previously been rumored, but the identities of the new partners had not been confirmed.
Two of the partners are new hires: Ulrich Quay and Sander Verbrugge, who will be based in Amsterdam. Quay, a German national, was most recently in charge of corporate investments as a vice president at BMW, where he previously founded and led corporate venture fund BMW i Ventures. Verbrugge, a Dutch PhD in molecular biophysics, was previously a partner at deep tech VC fund Innovation Industries, which he joined after working at semiconductor design and manufacturing company NXP. The third partner is London-based VC Patrick Schneider-Sikorsky, now the last remaining member of the original investment team. Alongside the new hires, the fund announced the departure of founding team partner Kelly Chen, who confirmed to TechCrunch that it was her decision and that she will be stepping away to build a new venture. Chris O'Connor, another founding team partner, departed earlier this year with similar plans.
Chen currently sits on the board of several startups backed by NIF, but will transition her board responsibilities once her employment at the NIF has wrapped up, TechCrunch learned from its chief communications and marketing officer, Amalia Kontesi.
While some observers wish the fund had deployed capital faster, she said NIF 'is on track to meet [its] investing goals for the year.' Since its inception, NIF has made 19 investments: seven into funds such as OTB Ventures, and 12 into startups including Space Forge and Tekever, which makes dual-use drones.
Still, adding new partners with industrial and scientific backgrounds, no matter how impressive, may not satisfy those who wish that the fund could invest in Ukraine or pure defense, as opposed to dual use, in response to Russia's war economy. But it is also in line with NIF's broader thesis to 'empower deep tech founders to address challenges in defence, security, and resilience.'
However, NIF has also ramped up its efforts on the defense side. Its team was heavily involved in the development of NATO's Rapid Adoption Action Plan, aimed at accelerating the adoption and integration of new technological products for defense. NIF has also been building up its Mission Platform Group with strategic hires including John Ridge, who was hired as chief adoption officer in 2024 to help portfolio startups navigate military procurement.
As for its new partners, they were once again hired through a process previously described by VC Michael Jackson as akin to 'building a boy band' — identified by NIF's board of directors and approved by LPs, rather than having teamed up based on shared history or chemistry.
This may be inevitable for an organization that now counts 24 countries as limited partners, but was often pointed as one reason the previous team didn't gel. This time, all three partners got to meet throughout the recruitment process and spend time together since then to 'ensure a smooth transition and to position the team for long term success,' Kontesi said.
In a statement shared exclusively with TechCrunch, NIF's vice chair, professor Fiona Murray, compared the organization to a startup. 'We are proud of what we accomplished but like any effective team we are learning, experimenting, improving: speeding up our processes, expanding our platform support for startups, doubling down on ecosystem building and more broadly recognizing the need to build the sector and the capital stack.'
Murray expressed pride in having brought together a qualified team that can collaborate effectively, creatively and quickly. 'They will enable us to move even more rapidly and decisively to drive the Alliance's technological agenda and support the best founders across European ecosystems,' she previously wrote in a joint statement with NIF's chair, Klaus Hommels.
Hommels' other activities as an investor have prompted questions about possible conflicts of interest, but no change appears to have been made to his role during NIF's recent LP meeting in Venice. Rather than dwelling further on its reorganization, NIF seems set on helping NATO become more resilient. 'In this next phase,' NIF's vice chair said, 'you'll see us refocus on DSR opportunities and emphasize building companies that can drive industrial scale and really support ecosystems across Europe.'
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