It’s not a storm — it’s the climate
It’s not a storm — it’s the climate
EDT: The Capital Europe Needs to Keep Its Technology
29 September 2026
Summary:
Europe has the technology.
The bigger question is whether Europe has the capital to keep it. In this episode of the Protect Europe Podcast, Colin Brown sits down with Martin Davis, co-founder of EDT Ventures, to explore the intersection of venture capital, emerging technology, national security and European strategic autonomy.
Martin’s journey has taken him from 11 years in the military, through software and financial services, into venture capital and ultimately into defence and national security investing. Today, EDT Ventures is building around a very specific gap in the European market: later-stage capital for technology businesses with both commercial and national security applications.
- Why Europe has a Series A/B and later-stage capital gap
- Why strategically important European companies can end up being acquired or funded from outside Europe
- The role of €20–30m anchor investments in keeping companies headquartered and controlled in Europe
- Why EDT focuses on dual-use rather than single-use defence technology – Emerging disruptive technologies across space, cyber, quantum, communications and more
- Why defence can act as an urgent first customer for technologies with much larger commercial markets
- The importance of “Act One, Act Two, Act Three” for technology companies
- How Ukraine has demonstrated the importance of building capability, not simply products
- Why national security and technological sovereignty are becoming increasingly intertwined
- Martin’s broader investment work across Europe and frontier markets in Africa
- This is a conversation about more than defence investing. It is about capital, technology, sovereignty and Europe’s ability to build and retain the capabilities it will need for the next decade.