The NATO Innovation Fund, a 1 billion euro ($1.12 billion) venture fund backed by 24 NATO countries, is opening a presence in Warsaw and seeking direct investments in Poland as it steers money toward counter-drone systems and space-based surveillance, its president, Ari Jonsson, said in an interview.
Jonsson named those two areas as the most urgent capability gaps on the alliance’s eastern flank. The needs run from technologies that detect, track and neutralize drones to space-based intelligence and reconnaissance. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has reshaped those priorities, he said, and lessons from the war have significantly influenced how the fund chooses where to invest.
The reason Poland ranks high, in his account, is exposure. Countries on the flank have faced drone incursions to a degree not seen elsewhere in the alliance, Jonsson said, and that produces “a different mindset” toward threats that can be seen. Poland’s defense spending, openness to new technology and engineering base also make it an attractive destination for capital, he said.
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The fund intends to look beyond traditional defense contractors. Jonsson said the next generation of military technology will come in part from companies outside that circle, and the Warsaw office is meant to speed up how promising innovations are found and adopted.
Poland’s Finance Minister Andrzej Domanski welcomed the move in a statement. He described the fund as “the first major fund, not originating from Poland, to establish a substantial presence” in the country.
The Warsaw office was planned years ago. According to Polish Radio reporting from the period, NATO leaders announced at their Vilnius summit that one of the fund’s three offices would sit in the Polish capital, alongside the headquarters in Amsterdam and a regional division in London. Poland put 42 million euros into the fund and was credited by officials with taking a leading role. Priority was to go to defense-oriented ventures, though inventions with civilian uses were also in scope.
Jonsson is a newer face. The fund’s board announced on March 5 that it had appointed him president to oversee day-to-day operations, with the job beginning April 1, according to the fund’s announcement. He is a former NASA researcher and university president. The board chair, Fiona Murray, said in the announcement that the fund had helped revitalize Europe’s defense, security and resilience ecosystem in two years.
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The environment he describes is visible on the ground. In the early hours of September 13, Russian strikes on Ukrainian regions coincided with a drone hitting a truck near the Yahodyn-Dorohusk border crossing on the Polish side, according to a spokesperson for the Polish Border Guard’s Nadbuzhanska unit. Ukraine’s border service said the crossing itself was not hit, and Poland’s defense minister said no violation of Polish airspace occurred. Prime Minister Donald Tusk called a special security meeting that Sunday.
The fund’s backers are 24 of the alliance’s 32 members, which means roughly a quarter of NATO countries are not among its investors. Poland also hosts other NATO innovation infrastructure. A Defence Innovation Accelerator for the North Atlantic site in Krakow works with the Polish defense ministry and, according to its operators, hosts startups from the United States and Europe working on dual-use deep technology. Poland is also the host country for ten test centers and the fund’s office, according to Polish media.
Where the money goes next depends on what the fund can find. The fund says it is looking for direct investments in Poland rather than only backing funds that invest on its behalf, and Jonsson said the Warsaw presence is to accelerate the identification and adoption of promising technology. No investment target, company or amount was named for Poland in the interview.
Counter-drone work is a growing business across Europe. Estonia has begun deploying its first fixed drone detection and monitoring systems along its border with Russia, according to a trade report. A trade publication in June reported that the fund was making strategic investments in defense, security and resilience out of its first $1 billion fund, and a market tracker reported that European defense, security and resilience startups raised a record $8.7 billion in 2025. That figure was reported by the fund’s own news feed citing the tracker, and ATN could not independently verify it.
