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Invested by Europe
Why Security and Defence is a Race Against Time for Europe
Season 1, Ep. 2
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Europe’s security environment is changing fast — and investment decisions made today will shape its resilience for decades. In this episode of Invested by Europe, we examine why security and defence is such an urgent priority and what European strategic autonomy means in practice.
The podcast explores how Europe is closing long-standing capability gaps through coordinated investment, joint procurement and new financing tools. Innovation emerges as a central theme, spanning areas such as cybersecurity, space, artificial intelligence and advanced electronics — many of them dual-use technologies with both civilian and military applications.
The episode also looks at the role of small and medium-sized enterprises, the importance of mobilising private investment alongside public funding, and how readiness depends on a broad ecosystem of technologies and suppliers.
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20. Women with a mission to make space safe: Ecosmic's Benedetta Cattani
19:17||Season 2, Ep. 20Benedetta Cattani is CEO and co-founder of Ecosmic, a space domain awareness company she started in 2024 with two former European Space Agency colleagues. She and her two female co-founders track satellites and warn customers about collision risks and hostile manoeuvres. They're working with the European Space Agency, Leonardo, NATO's early adoption programme, and various defence ministries. They're backed by Primo Space, the venture capital fund, and indirectly by the European Investment Fund. Benedetta argues that Ecosmic is important because space is congested, contested and complex, and that talent and determination can beat much bigger rivals.
19. Following the money: European Space Policy Institute research with João Falcão Serra
21:16||Season 2, Ep. 19João Falcão Serra leads industry and finance research at the European Space Policy Institute in Vienna. He explains how he tracks global investment in space companies and why European private funding is at record levels. He looks at the forces behind the boom, including defence demand, falling interest rates and the SpaceX IPO hype, and also points to a growing spread of investment in smaller economies like Finland, Bulgaria and Poland.
18. Invisible Technologies: Amazing space tech you've yet to hear of
24:10||Season 2, Ep. 18Rockets and satellites get the headlines. But what makes them work? Here are five technologies you've probably never heard of, but they're set to have a big impact on how rockets work and, even, on your electricity bill. We'll hear from the founders of companies working on: the pressure vessels inside every rocket and satellite; a green propellant to replace hydrazine, which can be stored for ten years and restarted in under thirty seconds; the aerospike engine, theoretically superior for sixty years and never yet demonstrated in flight; onboard software that lets satellites decide for themselves what to photograph; satellite data that helps power lines carry more electricity.Five technologies. None of them famous. All of them essential.
17. How the EU boosts space startups: CASSINI's Tomas Jonsson
13:04||Season 2, Ep. 17Tomas Jonsson leads the Cassini team at the European Commission's Directorate-General for Defence Industry and Space. It's the EU's space entrepreneurship programme. He describes how Europe's space sector has changed since 2019, with many more companies, real commercial growth and significant private investment. He also talks about the careers the sector offers beyond engineering, and about how companies in Poland, the Czech Republic, Scandinavia and the EU's smaller countries are catching up to the traditional big space economies of Germany, Italy and France.
16. Satellites that make their own decisions: AIKO founder Lorenzo Feruglio
16:59||Season 2, Ep. 16AIKO founder Lorenzo Feruglio explains how automation lets satellites make their own decisions, reducing waste and boosting profits (because right now only 10% of the data gathered by a satellite is monetised). An interview about software, artificial intelligence and...fixing a problem that less original thinkers didn't even know existed.
15. Finance in space: How Europe funds its space ambitions
23:27||Season 2, Ep. 15Europe's space investment hit a record €1.4 billion in 2025. The first half of 2026 already surpassed that amount. We look at the grants, equity, venture debt and, for the first time, commercial bank lending pushing space up the financial agenda. You'll hear from venutre capital investors at Warsaw's OTB Ventures and the European Investment Fund, bankers at the European Investment Bank, and the European Space Policy Institute analyst who tracks where the money goes. Sateliot founder Jaume Sanpera explains why an EU loan is "much more than money". He also names the financial layer Europe needs to build next.
14. Space is invisible infrastructure: Giancarlo Granero, European Commission
19:16||Season 2, Ep. 14Space is Europe's "invisible infrastructure". Giancarlo Granero, who leads on the space economy at the European Commission, explains how the European Union's Cassini initiative turned €200 million into a venture ecosystem that raised €1 billion last year.
13. The SpaceX insider who went European: Bulent Altan, Alpine Space Ventures
18:33||Season 2, Ep. 13From SpaceX engineer to space investor: Bulent Altan, one of SpaceX's first hires, now leads Alpine Space Ventures. Backed by the European Investment Fund, Alpine Space's first fund invested in some of the amazing companies you've met in this series, like Blackwave and Reflex Aerospace. Bulent talks about deep-tech investing and why Europe needs its own space industrial base.
12. Space and defence: The new frontier of European security
18:20||Season 2, Ep. 12Space has always been strategic, but Russia's invasion of Ukraine made that fact impossible to ignore. We explore how satellites became a frontline of modern warfare, why Europe's dependence on non-European networks is a vulnerability it can no longer afford, and what the continent is doing to protect its assets in orbit. From attacks on commercial satellites to the race to build sovereign European constellations, this is the story of how Europe is learning to defend itself out in space.