Defense startups for a new era: inside the Defense Venture Track

The room at Gerard & Anton’s Demos, Pitches & Drinks in Eindhoven was filled with the usual mix of startups, engineers, investors, and innovation enthusiasts. But this time, two presenters brought a different kind of urgency to the stage. Not another app, AI platform, or sustainability concept, but a mission tied directly to national security.

“We hope a lot of these ideas could also be part of keeping the Netherlands safe,” said Thijs, one of the participants in the new Dutch Defense Venture Track. “That is also something we are presenting today.”

Together with fellow participant Lucy, he introduced the audience to a one-year experimental program that aims to connect entrepreneurial talent with one of the most complex and traditionally closed innovation ecosystems in the country: the Dutch Ministry of Defense.

The initiative is part of the broader Dutch defense innovation movement and is coordinated through the Dutch Defense Venture Track.

A new generation for defense innovation

The Defense Venture Track brings together eight young professionals with backgrounds ranging from engineering to business and public affairs. Most are reservists within the military, although future editions will also explicitly welcome civilians. “We are all very interested in setting up our own companies, maybe in the future,” Thijs explained. “And we are seeking innovation within the Ministry of Defense and really want to be part of it.”

That combination of startup mentality and public mission reflects a broader shift happening across Europe. Governments increasingly recognize that innovation cycles in defense can no longer move at traditional bureaucratic speed. Technologies such as drones, AI systems, autonomous logistics, cybersecurity, and satellite communication evolve too quickly.

The war in Ukraine and rising geopolitical tensions have accelerated that realization. Lucy put it bluntly: “The current global situation is asking for this acceleration.”

Translating innovation into force

The core mission of the program sounds almost like a startup manifesto, albeit with military consequences attached to it. “Our mission is to realize before 2028 the military capacities which give the Netherlands a strategic advantage,” Lucy said, “by translating innovation into action or force.”

The wording reveals the program’s underlying philosophy. Innovation is not seen as something abstract or experimental, but as a capability that must ultimately become operational. To get there, participants spend a year immersed in the Dutch defense innovation system. They receive weekly training sessions on topics such as team building, systems thinking, and design thinking, while simultaneously working on real operational problems faced by the military.

“The goal of this one-year program is to really get to know Dutch defense and mainly the Dutch defense innovation system,” Lucy explained. “And in this year, we also work on actual problems that the Dutch military is facing.”

The participants are not merely studying policy from a distance. They actively engage with stakeholders across the ecosystem, from military organizations and government agencies to companies and research institutes. “The past month, we worked on getting to know the Dutch innovation system, and we spoke to many stakeholders,” Lucy said. “We got to know some of the critical points that work against this acceleration of innovation.”

Eindhoven as a defense ecosystem

Their appearance in Eindhoven was no coincidence. The Brainport region increasingly positions itself as a strategic technology hub not only for semiconductors and deep tech, but also for dual-use innovation with defense applications.

Artificial intelligence, photonics, secure communication systems, autonomous mobility, advanced manufacturing, and drone technologies all intersect with both civilian and military relevance. The Defense Venture Track appears designed precisely to operate in that overlap.

The participants are currently preparing for projects around tactical supply chains and operational simulations. At the same time, the program explicitly leaves room for entrepreneurial initiatives developed by the participants themselves. “Besides the program, there is also space for your own initiative,” Lucy said. “In the coming months, we will also be working on projects which we ourselves initiated.”

That entrepreneurial freedom is perhaps what makes the initiative unusual within a defense context. Rather than imposing rigid hierarchies, the track borrows methods from startup culture: rapid iteration, interdisciplinary teamwork, and problem-driven experimentation.

More than soldiers

The human side of the initiative also became visible during the short pitch. These are not career officers shaped entirely by military structures. They are young professionals balancing civic ambition, entrepreneurial curiosity, and public responsibility. Because most participants are reservists, the group moves between civilian and military worlds almost by definition. “Since we are part of the military, we also need to stay in shape,” Thijs joked toward the end of the presentation. “So we also do a lot of sports together.”

The remark triggered laughter in the audience, but it also highlighted the hybrid nature of the program. Team building, physical resilience, systems thinking, and innovation all become part of the same training ground. For a country like the Netherlands, traditionally less associated with defense entrepreneurship than the United States or Israel, the initiative may signal a cultural change as much as an organizational one.

The Defense Venture Track is still small. Only eight participants currently form the first cohort. Yet the ambition behind it is much larger: creating a faster and more connected pathway between Dutch technological innovation and national resilience.

Or, as Lucy summarized it, accelerating a system that can no longer afford to move slowly.