Business investment has poured $12.3 billion into security technology startups since the start of 2026, nearly double the amount raised last year.
The conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East have revealed the urgent need for weapons that are cheap and quick to build. This demand has turned weapons into one of the most popular bets of the year.
VC Funds to Pour $12.3 Billion into Defense Tech in 2026
According to the Financial Times, this figure already exceeds the $9.95 billion that the sector attracted in 2025. passion for drones, independence ships, and military intelligence has grown.
Capital resides among a small group of investors. According to PitchBookGaingels, Alumni Ventures, and Andreessen Horowitz sat in the middle the largest number of check writers in the first quarter.
Daniel Rudnicki Schlumberger, JPMorgan’s head of security and resilience in Europe, the Middle East, and Asia, said the increase comes as investment is increasingly seeing security as a long-term opportunity.
“We are seeing a very important change in the way wars are being fought without a doubt,” Schlumberger. he said.
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Crypto Venture Funds Move The Other Way
The security rush is different from crypto, which is money trading you are very cold. Galaxy Research found that VCs sent nearly $4 billion across 355 crypto deals in the first quarter.
This represented a 50% drop in revenue from the previous quarter, even though sales volumes fell by only 16%.
“The decrease in Q4’s spike was mainly due to a decrease in the capital expenditure, after all.” The number of completed deals fell significantly more than the number of invested funds, indicating that small start-up and seed rounds continued even though Q1 did not have Q4’s number of mega-rounds, “Galaxy Research he wrote.
Year-on-year, the trend means about $16 billion in 2026, down from about $20 billion last year. Meanwhile, the launch of the new fund also stopped.
Crypto-focused venture capital took in nearly $1.1 billion in the first quarter, spread over just eight vehicles. This number was the lowest for new fund launches since the third quarter of 2020.
The Galaxy took part in this change goods for sale and land and digital asset companies, which now compete for venture capital for allocator capital. However, the company confirmed that “crypto venture operations remain healthy overall.”
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A note Wars Driven $12.3 Billion in VC Investment in the Sector appeared for the first time BeInCrypto.
