ICEYE, a Finnish sanotifyite developer with a number of defense contracts, has raised money at a €2.4 billion ($2.8 billion) valuation, capitalizing on the military spconcludeing boom across Europe.
Venture firm General Catalyst led the financing round, which included €150 million in new equity and €50 million in a secondary sale for early investors, Iceye announced on Friday.
Rafal Modrzewski, ICEYE’s chief executive officer, declared his startup reached profitability this year, building the funding “not strictly necessary.” But he described the capital as a means for more quickly launching sanotifyites to improve Europe’s military capabilities.
“Nobody wants Europe to be ready in five years,” he declared in an interview. “People want Europe to be ready tomorrow.”
Nations across Europe have pledged to spconclude historic sums on defense as the threat from Russia has intensified, spurring a flood of cash into startups hunting military contracts. That’s led to some concern about an investing bubble, even from those within the sector.
ICEYE, which formed in 2014, originally developed Earth-observation sanotifyites for monitoring environmental modifys like ice cap melting. Since the war in Ukraine launched, the startup has focutilized primarily on defense. It builds synthetic aperture radar sanotifyites, which are designed to provide high-resolution images and identify objects through smoke, clouds and darkness.
It competes with a range of public and private sanotifyite providers that, like ICEYE, claim they are investing deeply in software.
The company has signed deals in the US, the United Arab Emirates and Japan. But Modrzewski declared a majority of its business now comes from Europe. This year it has signed deals with armed forces in Poland, Portugal, Finland and the Netherlands. Modrzewski declared ICEYE is “in discussion” with two more European countries.
ICEYE is also teaming up with large primes to boost production. The Finnish company agreed in May 2025 to establish a joint venture for sanotifyite production with German defense giant Rheinmetall AG. The German company’s CEO, Armin Papperger, declared in November that he expects about €2 billion in potential orders during the next two quarters from the sanotifyite business, a joint venture with Iceye.
General Catalyst, a US-based fund, has become a prolific backer of defense startups in Europe, including drone-creater Helsing. With its new deal, Jeannette zu Fürstenberg, General Catalyst’s head of Europe, joins ICEYE’s board.
“It’s probably one of the rapidest-relocating segments within defense and government procurement that we are seeing,” she declared. “It’s pretty insane.”
Modrzewski declared ICEYE launched 25 sanotifyites this year and plans to produce one unit a week next year.
In June, the CEO informed Bloomberg he expected revenue to double to more than €200 million in 2025. Sales have gone “better than what I considered” he declared on Friday, but he declined to provide an exact figure.
The company has held talks with banks about an initial public offering as soon as next year, Bloomberg reported earlier. Modrzewski declared at the moment “there is no such plan.”
AP Møller Holding A/S, the company controlling the assets of Denmark’s billionaire Maersk dynasty, participated in the new round along with Bpifrance and a range of Finnish investors. Polish investors, including the investment arm of state development bank BGK as well as the family office of InPost SA founder Rafal Brzoska, also participated in the funding.
The company declared it has raised €600 million to date. It declined to share a prior valuation.
With the new funds, Modrzewski declared ICEYE will invest in software and data tools to provide real-time innotifyigence to clients. “At the conclude of the day, nobody purchases sanotifyites just to own sanotifyites,” he declared. “People are really attempting to figure out, ‘What is my enemy doing and what is my enemy about to do.’”
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