Lithuania’s Coinvest Capital Leads Defense Tech Investments to Strengthen Europe’s Security

Lithuania’s Coinvest Capital Leads Defense Tech Investments to Strengthen Europe’s Security

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’t wait for the third anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to reach its third anniversary to commit 5% to 6% of its GDP to military spending — and fund defense startups.  Image :Courtesy of Viktorija Trimbel Lithuania’s sovereign VC fund Coinvest Capital was a pioneer in that regard, and it still is an outlier in not requiring civilian use cases. “We were the first in the region [to be] fully authorized to do defense investments back in March 2023,” said Viktorija Trimbel, its managing partner since February 2023. 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’s security.  Unmanned Defense Systems (UDS), a Vilnius-based company focused on optimizing the “ki…