{"id":656315,"date":"2025-03-08T18:15:14","date_gmt":"2025-03-08T15:15:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/in-defense-tech-lithuanias-sovereign-vc-fund-is-one-step-ahead\/"},"modified":"2025-03-08T18:15:14","modified_gmt":"2025-03-08T15:15:14","slug":"in-defense-tech-lithuanias-sovereign-vc-fund-is-one-step-ahead","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/in-defense-tech-lithuanias-sovereign-vc-fund-is-one-step-ahead\/","title":{"rendered":"#In defense tech, Lithuania\u2019s sovereign VC fund is one step ahead"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Europe is waking up to the need to invest in defense, and so are European VCs. But with a painful history of Soviet occupations, Lithuania didn\u2019t wait for the third anniversary of Russia\u2019s invasion of Ukraine to reach its third anniversary to commit 5% to 6% of its GDP<\/a> to military spending \u2014 and fund defense startups.<\/p>\n

Lithuania\u2019s sovereign VC fund Coinvest Capital<\/a> was a pioneer in that regard, and it still is an outlier in not requiring civilian use cases. \u201cWe were the first in the region [to be] fully authorized to do defense investments back in March 2023,\u201d said Viktorija Trimbel, its managing partner since February 2023.<\/p>\n

Unlike many Lithuanians, Trimbel is not tall at all. But what she lacks in basketball potential, she makes up for in energy and relentlessness, especially when it comes to advocating for innovation in defense tech to strengthen Europe\u2019s security.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Unmanned Defense Systems<\/a> (UDS), a Vilnius-based company focused on optimizing the \u201ckill chain,\u201d received Coinvest\u2019s largest investment in that domain, but it is not the only one. According to Trimbel, the evergreen fund has invested some \u20ac6.8 million (app<\/a>roximately $7.37 million) into aerospace, defense, and dual-use startups since 2023.<\/p>\n

Compared to the billion-dollar rounds flooding into U.S. defense tech companies, the amount may not sound very impressive. That\u2019s unless you consider it per capita, something people often urge you to do in this small Baltic country of 2.89 million inhabitants.<\/p>\n

Co-creation is another notion that Lithuania often emphasizes, as does Coinvest. As its name suggests, the early-stage fund is co-investing into startups with business angels and other VCs. For early-stage deals, it adopted a capped profit-sharing structure<\/a> that Trimbel is particularly passionate about.<\/p>\n

As a board member of the Lithuanian Business Angel Network (LitBAN), which now has 324 members, she\u2019s particularly keen to see more smart money flow into the market. While the collective value of Lithuania\u2019s startup ecosystem increased 39 times in 10 years<\/a>, the country still lacks an exit as impactful as Skype\u2019s was for Estonia.<\/p>\n

Still, liquidity events such as Vinted\u2019s secondary sale had a drip-down effect, and Trimbel thinks Coinvest can multiply these euros fast. When it exited Interactio after just 18 months, its rules boosted angel investors\u2019 returns from 9x to 34x. \u201cI believe that was one of the factors which facilitated an explosive growth of the business angel ecosystem,\u201d Trimbel said.<\/p>\n

In defense tech, too, Trimbel champions the success of others in securing capital. Coinvest\u2019s sole limited partner, Lithuania\u2019s national development bank, also provided \u201cmajor capital injections to other local VCs like BSV Ventures or ScaleWolf, including [the] Lithuanian contribution to the NATO Innovation Fund (NIF),\u201d she celebrated<\/a> on LinkedIn.<\/p>\n

Similarly, Trimbel is pleased<\/a> to see governments across Europe embracing the trend of \u201cinvesting in deterrence and defense to further support competitiveness and resilience of European countries.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s a need Lithuania is sorely aware of, often deeply personally. \u201cWhen I was 18, I saw with my own eyes, Russian tanks killing people. So for us, it\u2019s not a textbook story,\u201d Trimbel said, referring to the 1991\u2019s January Events<\/a> in which the Soviet military attempted to suppress Lithuania\u2019s independence movement.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The trauma of Soviet rule that\u2019s deeply ingrained in Lithuania\u2019s collective memory stretches far beyond 1991. \u201cIt\u2019s something that every family has experienced one way or another: occupation, deportations, killings. We don\u2019t need to be taught why we need to invest in defense,\u201d Trimbel said.<\/p>\n

Still, since the war in Ukraine, there\u2019s a renewed sense of urgency and solidarity. The 2025 edition of Radarom<\/a>, a public fundraising campaign for Ukraine, collected more than \u20ac5.6 million<\/a> for drones and anti-drone systems, including from UDS. Trimbel endorsed it, urging, \u201cSupport Ukraine NOW\u00a0\u2026 and any other day till victory.\u201d<\/p>\n

Like nearly all Lithuanians, Trimbel recalls where she was when Russia launched its full-on invasion of its eastern neighbor on February 24, 2022. A few days earlier, she was abroad with her two daughters, and they discussed whether they should return as signs of war amounted \u2014 until her youngest daughter pointed out that they had to: They had left the cat.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Cat or no cat, Trimbel would likely have returned to Lithuania either way. She points out that her first name, Viktorija, or Victory, is a good match for her relentless personality. Her circle of girlfriends is also up to par: \u201cInstead of going to the bar and discussing\u00a0a new handbag or a dress or lipstick, we go to the shooting range,\u201d she said with a smile.<\/p>\n

Of course, not everyone reacts the same way \u2014 it\u2019s only human to experience a flight or freeze reflex. In the immedia<\/a>te aftermath of the war, however, she aimed to get others out of this paralysis by encouraging them to take practical steps. One of them was to join volunteering initiatives that have gained steam across Lithuania.<\/p>\n

The most emblematic organization in that field is the government-backed nonprofit Lithuanian Riflemen\u2019s Union (LRU<\/a>). While it is dedicated to the defense and strengthening of Lithuania, its activities extend beyond military training: Together with Coinvest and others, it co-organized the Fire Shield hackathon<\/a>, which will return in 2025 for a third edition.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s the context in which Trimbel is pictured above, together with the Union\u2019s commander, Lieutenant Colonel Linas Idzelis (in uniform) and retired Lt. Col. Valerijus \u0160erelis,\u00a0former squadron commander of the special operations forces that the not-that-random country<\/a> sent to support NATO allies in Afghanistan after 9\/11.<\/p>\n

LRU also contributed to civilian response during the COVID-19 pandemic, as did Trimbel, who invested efforts into a helmet-based ventilation protection project<\/a>. \u201cCOVID was a good rehearsal to mobilize society during times of threat,\u201d she said. For her, that threat has now changed, but it is very much real.<\/p>\n

But even now, Trimbel cares about areas other than defense tech, and so does Coinvest. She spoke enthusiastically of portfolio startup Walk15<\/a> and its upcoming \u201cLabrador walk<\/a>,\u201d an outdoors hike with dogs to encourage people to take more steps to be more active \u2014 literally.\u00a0<\/p>\n

However, as she wrote in a recent LinkedIn post<\/a>, \u201cno other investment returns will matter if Ukraine will not receive sufficient support from allies and Europe will be invaded further.\u201d As her name and personality suggest, she won\u2019t relent in her efforts to prevent this outcome.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Europe is waking up to the need to invest in defense, and so are European VCs. But with a painful history of Soviet occupations, Lithuania didn\u2019t wait for the third anniversary of Russia\u2019s invasion of Ukraine to reach its third anniversary to commit 5% to 6% of its GDP to military spending \u2014 and fund…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":656316,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/coinvest.jpeg?resize=900,1200","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[154778,151476,28340,12313,151477],"class_list":["post-656315","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-technology","tag-coinvest-capital","tag-defense-tech","tag-europe","tag-lithuania","tag-venture"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/656315","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=656315"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/656315\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/656316"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=656315"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=656315"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=656315"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}