When swinging Copenhagen last month on a 24-hour swing, Eric Thlesinger met with the engineer who makes Maritime Drone, a developer of war planning software and an advisor to NATO. He recently traveled to London for dinner with a senior intelligence official in the UK and quickly headed to the Arctic to learn about the techniques that can cope with extreme climates.
Schedules seem more common to Mr. Thulesinger, a previous job as a central intelligence agency executive. But now, the 35-year-old has been in high demand as he has made his spy agency qualification into his career as a venture capitalist focusing on suddenly related fields of European defence and national security technology.
“This is all happening at Warp Speed,” said Slesinger, who supported eight defence startups and negotiated several more.
When President Trump questioned the future of transatlantic relations, European governments outline plans to potentially spend hundreds of millions of euros to rebuild their troops on weapons, missile defense programs, satellite systems and other technologies. Engineers, entrepreneurs and investors are racing to capitalize on the spending boom by creating new defence startups.
When Slesinger moved to Madrid four years ago, Europe couldn't take US military protection for granted, and therefore rarely paid attention to the idea that defence spending would need to be significantly increased. Now, his predictions seem foresightful. After Trump took office following the defeat of Vice President Kamala Harris in the November election, members of his administration called Europe “pathetic” and US military mooches.
“Whether Trump won, Harris or someone else, the fact remains that there is a technology catch-up that needs to happen in Europe,” Thlesinger said while walking between meetings in Copenhagen last month. “Maybe it's been accelerated in a certain way, but this has been a long time.”
Slesinger is now in the extraordinary position of a former American intelligence agent seeking to benefit from planned military transformations in Europe. His one-man venture capital firm, 201 Ventures, has completed a $22 million fund to invest in young startups at the intersection of technology and national security.
Slesinger's initial investments include a Swedish maritime drone company, a British manufacturer of manufacturing technology, a Greek artificial intelligence company, and a German polar vehicle startup.
The United States has a long tradition of investing in defense. Silicon Valley was partially launched with Pentagon fundraising — and saw the rise of several military-centric startups, such as Palantir and Anduril. Europe's success has decreased. This is because many investors refused to spend money behind them because defense-related companies were considered very unethical.
“We're committed to providing a great opportunity to help you,” said Chris O'Connor, a partner at NATO Innovation Fund. This is not the US, but not the US, Chris O'Cononor, partner at NATO Innovation Fund, said:
The NATO Fund is the largest financial aid for Mr. Slesinger's company. O'Connor said Slesinger's national security experience would be ideal for identifying companies with the skills that could win government contracts.
“He's going to play an important role in the end,” O'Connor said.
Mr. Thlesinger grew up just outside of Washington, DC and attended Stanford. There, he was outstanding in the mechanical engineering program, Craig Millroy, co-director of Stanford's Product Realization Lab, said students could workshop hardware ideas.
Many of Slesinger's Stanford classmates explored work at Apple and Google, but he saw elsewhere. “He came to my office one day and said, 'I'm applying to join the CIA,'' Milroy said. “It's never happened before or since.”
Slesinger is Cagey about working at the CIA for five and a half years, but in his engineering background he worked among more of the Q-like figures in James Bond Films.
“Imagine being a student and a nerd engineer, and you can go to this place, like the ability of a Santa workshop,” he said. “Intellectual issues are really difficult, they're terrible, and you feel a real responsibility to do something to solve the problem. ”
In 2019, Slesinger returned from his agency to attend Harvard Business School. He also spent the summer with IN-Q-TEL, the CIA venture capital fund.
Around this time he stuck to the idea that Europe must rebuild its military after a generation of low investment. The US spent about $880 billion in defense in 2024. This is more than twice what other NATO countries have spent in total.
With the US focus on China, Slesinger was certain that he would see the end of the so-called peace dividend, which allowed European countries to spend more on social services and pensions since World War II, rather than tanks and fighter planes.
Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022 crystallized his papers further. He then launched the European Defense Investor Network. This includes around 125 investors, entrepreneurs and policymakers. Last year he started a 201 venture.
At first, he struggled with fundraising as many investors refused to support military technology. However, he eventually raised money from NATO and found advisors such as Eileen Tangar, who oversaw In-Q-Tel's London office. David Ulevitch is a general partner of Silicon Valley venture company Andreessen Horowitz. Author: Sebastian Marabie.
Over the past 12 months, Thlesinger, who has an Italian passport from family roots, has traveled to 15 countries. On his recent trip to the Arctic, he rode a snowmobile to a remote area that is being considered for testing new power and communications technology. In Switzerland, he toured the world's most powerful particle accelerator.
In February, Slesinger was in Germany for the Munich Security Conference when Vice President JD Vance gave a furious speech criticizing Europe. Within weeks, Germany, France, the UK and other European countries pledged to significantly increase military spending, and warned that they could no longer rely on the United States as trustworthy ally.
“It felt like a change in the ocean,” said Thlesinger, who saw Vance's speech from his laptop at a nearby hotel. “I could feel that as he spoke.”
It is unclear how much of the new spending will reach the startup. Missiles, ammunition and fighter jets may be prioritized over small, untested corporate technologies.
Slesinger said it will take years to measure success, but he hopes to spend $22 million over the next two years and is already beginning to consider raising a lot of money. Over the past few months he has been troubled by the sudden interest in creating military technology by European entrepreneurs.
For almost everyone he meets in Europe, there is one nagging question. Does he really work for the CIA?
“I'm really out!” he said.
