Two years after securing $1 billion in commitments from over 20 countries, the NATO Innovation Fund (NIF) is entering a new chapter, marked by the arrival of two new partners and the departure of its penultimate founding team partner.
In a context of increased military spending across NATO members, investment in dual-use technology has skyrocketed since the initiative was first announced in 2021. Once a no-go-zone for institutional investors, defense and resilience tech last reached an all-time high of 10% of all VC funding in Europe, where nearly all NIF’s backers are located.
This booming interest should have given NIF a first-mover advantage, but the fund was hampered by management challenges and a series of high-profile departures. After the 2025 NATO Summit in The Hague reaffirmed its importance last June, NIF is now emerging with an almost entirely new investment team. It is composed of three partners.
While NIF originally had four partners and one managing partner, a person familiar with NIF said that this flat, three-partner model will be the structure in place for the foreseeable future, suggesting that no new hires are to be expected. These two appointments had previously been rumored, but the identities of the new partners had not been confirmed.
Two of the partners are new hires: Ulrich Quay and Sander Verbrugge, who will be based in Amsterdam. Quay, a German national, was most recently in charge of corporate investments as a vice president at BMW, where he previously founded and led corporate venture fund BMW i Ventures. Verbrugge, a Dutch PhD in molecular biophysics, was previously a partner at deep tech VC fund Innovation Industries, which he joined after working at semiconductor design and manufacturing company NXP. The third partner is London-based VC Patrick Schneider-Sikorsky, now the last remaining member of the original investment team. Alongside the new hires, the fund announced the departure of founding team partner Kelly Chen, who confirmed to TechCrunch that it was her decision and that she will be stepping away to build a new venture. Chris O’Connor, another founding team partner, departed earlier this year with similar plans.
Chen currently sits on the board of several startups backed by NIF, but will transition her board responsibilities once her employment at the NIF has wrapped up, TechCrunch learned from its chief communications and marketing officer, Amalia Kontesi.
While some observers wish the fund had deployed capital faster, she said NIF “is on track to meet [its] investing goals for the year.” Since its inception, NIF has made 19 investments: seven into funds such as OTB Ventures, and 12 into startups including Space Forge and Tekever, which makes dual-use drones.
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Still, adding new partners with industrial and scientific backgrounds, no matter how impressive, may not satisfy those who wish that the fund could invest in Ukraine or pure defense, as opposed to dual use, in response to Russia’s war economy. But it is also in line with NIF’s broader thesis to “empower deep tech founders to address challenges in defence, security, and resilience.”
However, NIF has also ramped up its efforts on the defense side. Its team was heavily involved in the development of NATO’s Rapid Adoption Action Plan, aimed at accelerating the adoption and integration of new technological products for defense. NIF has also been building up its Mission Platform Group with strategic hires including John Ridge, who was hired as chief adoption officer in 2024 to help portfolio startups navigate military procurement.
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