From First Close to Full Team: Three Investment Hires for a €180M European Defence-Tech Fund

The Challenge

• Amsterdam-based defence-tech VC, Netherlands
• Three investment hires
• July 2025 → September 2026
• Defence Fund Launch: Investment Team Build Phase

The client is a Dutch venture capital firm with offices in Amsterdam and London. In 2025 it launched a dedicated European defence and security fund. It invests from seed to Series B with tickets of €1M to €10M, and plans to back more than 25 companies. The European Investment Fund and a Dutch pension fund put in €40M each. The first close came in November 2025 at more than €150M, and the fund reached €180M in April 2026.

Raising the money was step one. Deploying it took people the firm didn't have yet:

• Investors who had already done deals in deep tech or defence, at Associate and Investment Manager level
• A Partner who could open doors with founders, governments and the defence industry

In our view, European defence-tech investing is only a few years old, so very few people have a long track record in it. That made both briefs hard.

They turned to The Big Search.

Overview of the two executive searches

Between July 2025 and September 2026, The Big Search ran two searches for the client in parallel. Both opened on 29 July 2025. The first, for the investment team, ended with two hires: an Investment Manager and an Associate. The second was for a Partner. We closed both, and the client scored the investment-team search 9 on NPS.

Phase 1 - Building the Deal Team: Investment Manager and Associate

• July 2025 → January 2026
• Defence Fund Launch: Deal Team Phase

This was a repeat engagement. The firm had hired an Operating Partner through us in 2018 and made two more hires through us in 2021. This time it wanted investors who already knew the sector and could run a deal, or soon would.

Executive Search Across European Deep-Tech, Space and Defence Venture Capital

Our interviews covered analysts, associates and investment managers at deep-tech and space funds and state investors in Paris, Munich, London, Milan, Zurich, Warsaw and the Baltics. Inbound applications became a second channel, and the Associate we placed applied directly. The client's partners suggested several names too, and each went through the same interview.

The client's feedback and our screening set the bar:

• Deep-tech or defence investment experience, ahead of general VC exposure
• Deal execution, especially on Series A rounds
• A long-term commitment to the sector
• Around 5 years of investing for the senior hire
• Fit with the team's geographic make-up across Europe
• For finalists, a case study and a day with the team in Amsterdam

287 candidates went onto the search pipeline.

First shortlist

20 days from kick-off

Of the 287, 205 sat on the Tier 1 longlist and 82 on Tier 2. We contacted 201 and 144 replied (72%). 92 reached a consultant interview, an interest rate of 46%. 29 made the shortlist and 20 met the client. Candidates with no sector deals of their own didn't get far. The first of 2 offers went out 114 days after kick-off. The second, for the more junior hire, followed in January 2026.

Client NPS

9/10

The Placed Candidate: An Investor Who Had Already Sourced and Led a Counter-Drone Deal

They spent nearly 3 years at a pan-European deep-tech fund in Warsaw, moving up from Associate to Investment Manager. Before that, they spent 2 years at Poland's largest fund-of-funds investor, working on commitments to top-tier European VCs. Their sectors were space, physical AI, cybersecurity and defence.

• Sector deal record — they sourced and led their fund's investment in a counter-drone interceptor maker months before drones crossed into Polish airspace. A former partner called it one of the fund's best performers.
• Closing deals — 3 new investments in 2025, 2 led and 1 co-led, with €3M to €7M tickets in rounds of €10M to €20M.
• Both sides of the table — fund-of-funds diligence first, then direct investing from seed to Series B.
• Location — Warsaw-based, close to founders in Central and Eastern Europe, with regular deal flow in Munich. They offered to be in Amsterdam every two weeks.
• References — the former partner who ran their fund's defence investing rated their potential 5 out of 5 and said they could become a Partner.

They started in February 2026.

The Placed Candidate: An Aerospace Engineer Who Moved Into Investing on Purpose

They hold a first-class BEng in Mechanical Engineering and an MSc in Aerospace Dynamics with distinction. They moved through two private equity roles in London, then in September 2025 joined a Paris fund backing early-stage defence and space companies as an analyst intern. They applied to the search directly.

• Engineering depth — their research with a major UK defence supplier covered micro-turbines for military air-to-air refuelling.
• Sector fluency — in interview they covered orbital warfare, maritime domain awareness, NATO testing programmes, underwater infrastructure protection and how procurement differs by country.
• Own deal flow — their supervisor said they brought in deals through their own networks in London and Paris, which was unusual at their level.
• LP exposure — they helped prepare a presentation for a major European sovereign LP.
• Ready to move — a Dutch national, open to relocating to Amsterdam. Their fund's general partner said the fund would have kept them if it had the headcount.

Phase 2 - Adding Senior Weight: Partner

• July 2025 → September 2026
• Defence Fund Deployment: Partner Phase

The Partner search started with established deep-tech investors. Between September 2025 and March 2026, 11 candidates met the client and none received an offer.

By May 2026 the brief had changed. The client wanted its Partner based in Germany, and the new brief named the gap. The firm had military credibility and policy access, but no partner who had worked inside a large defence contractor, run a P&L there or closed corporate development deals.

Executive Search Across European Deep-Tech VC, Defence Primes and Scale-Ups

Our first-wave interviews covered partners and principals at deep-tech funds in Munich, Paris, London, Zurich, the Nordics and the Baltics. On 11 May 2026 we relaunched with four tracks in parallel, and added a fifth on 29 May:

• Venture and corporate VC investors in DACH, with 8 to 10 years' experience and a lead-investor record in deep tech (VC or corporate VC only)
• Investment leads at the corporate venture arms of industrial groups
• Commercial, corporate development, strategy, sales and operations leaders at defence-tech scale-ups; product, engineering and manufacturing excluded
• The same functions at defence primes, ideally a founder who had sold a company to one
• Strategy consultants with defence experience

Defence experience was mandatory for the operator tracks. Germany was preferred, and the rest of the EU was acceptable for operators.

Target company archetypes included Rheinmetall, Hensoldt, KNDS, Airbus Defence, Thales and Leonardo, the venture arms of German industrial groups, and the large strategy firms.

We undertook an exhaustive mapping exercise across Europe. 326 candidates went onto the search pipeline, and the relaunch alone mapped 682 companies.

First shortlist

27 days from kick-off

Senior investors replied, and a third were interested. We contacted 146 and 86 replied (59%). 48 reached a consultant interview, an interest rate of 33%. 17 made the shortlist and 13 met the client.

The hire came from our own network. We had known them since 2018. Our Partner Elena Obukhova interviewed them on 27 May 2026, as they prepared to leave their role, and shortlisted them the same day. The client met them for coffee on 12 June. A half-day in Paris followed, with a case study run as an investment discussion. Then came time with the team in Amsterdam in August, and an offer on 31 August. The relaunch did produce candidates too: two defence-industry executives were still at our interview stage in mid-August, by which point the client was at an advanced stage with the eventual hire.

Their references, logged two days after the hire, were candid. As CEO they sat on the investment committee without leading deals themselves, and one reference advised putting their remit in writing from day one.

The Placed Candidate: A State Fund Leader Who Built a Baltic Defence Programme From Scratch

They spent 10 years at the top of a Baltic state-owned fund manager, first on its management board and from 2024 as CEO. They wound down its legacy direct portfolio and rebuilt it as a fund-of-funds backing first-time managers in the Baltics and Nordics. Then they relaunched direct investing with cleantech and defence verticals. They told us the firm was approaching €500M under management across 3 strategies.

• Programme builder — they launched the firm's direct defence-tech strategy, which drew inbound interest from Israel to the US.
• Network across the region — their references, including a former national armaments director, describe close ties across the Baltics, the Nordics, Poland and the UK, and with their country's armed forces and ministries.
• Fund-building experience — as a cornerstone LP they backed emerging managers, and one reference says they were closely involved in building a new NATO-linked fund.
• Leadership through change — their team grew from 3 people to more than a dozen through COVID, an energy crisis, the war in Ukraine and several changes of government.
• Wants the deal work back — they chose an investing role over a government role.

They started in November 2026.

In our view, a new defence fund hires best from people who already sit close to its market: the founders, the ministries and the funds that back them.

Across 14 months we placed an Investment Manager, an Associate and a Partner for the client's fund. The client scored the first search 9/10.

The partner-level market was the hardest. 59% of senior candidates replied and 33% were interested, against 72% and 46% at Associate and Investment Manager level. The Partner hire came from the LP side of the market, outside all five tracks.

If you've raised a defence fund and your team isn't ready to deploy it yet, let's talk.