NATO launches Innovation Fund

NATO has launched the Innovation Fund that will support and promote the development of the military industry. Latvia is among the founders of the fund.

22 NATO member states at the alliance’s summit in Madrid signed a letter of commitment to launch NATO’s Innovation Fund. Latvia is one of the countries joining the fund, which will be providing support to startups developing innovative solutions. NATO’s Innovation Fund will help develop civilian and military-use innovations that will help deal with emerging security challenges and promote the development of member states’ startup economies.

According to the Defense Ministry, NATO’s Innovation Fund will be the world’s first multi-sovereign venture capital fund. The Innovation Fund will invest EUR 1 billion in early-stage start-ups and other venture capital funds developing dual-use emerging technologies of priority to NATO. These include artificial intelligence; big-data processing; quantum-enabled technologies; autonomy; biotechnology and human enhancement; novel materials; energy; propulsion and space.

The Fund will complement NATO’s Defense Innovation Accelerator for the North Atlantic – or DIANA – which will support the development and adaptation of dual-use emerging technologies to critical security and defense challenges. There has also been significant progress for DIANA at the 2022 Madrid Summit where Allies agreed that innovators participating in DIANA’s programs will have access to a network of more than 9 Accelerator Sites and more than 63 Test Centers across Europe and North America. One of the program’s DIANA Test Centers is located at the Adazi military base where a 5G military test site has been created in cooperation with Latvijas Mobilais Telefons (LMT) telecommunications company.

Source: LETA