site.btaNATO Innovation Fund Is More than Financial Instrument, Innovation Minister Says

During an event organized by the Innovation and Growth Ministry to raise awareness of the funding opportunities under the NATO Innovation Fund (NIF), Innovation Minister Milena Stoycheva said that the Fund is much more than a financial instrument. "It highlights our shared vision of a more secure and sustainable future," she added. 

Stoycheva noted that the NIF is a EUR 1 billion venture capital fund aimed at directing investment to participating countries with a 15-year timeframe. The capital is provided by the countries on a voluntary basis. The fund is designed to support deep-tech startups addressing defence and security challenges. 

Bulgaria’s National Assembly is expected to ratify the Participating Partner Agreement to the NATO Innovation Fund in February, Stoycheva said.

The Fund will focus on emerging and disruptive technologies in NATO priority areas such as artificial intelligence, big data processing, quantum technologies, autonomy, biotechnologies, new materials, and space, which fall under the umbrella term "deep tech", the Minister added.

"Deep technologies are also of interest to the European Innovation Council," Stoycheva said. She was confident in the synergy that could be achieved between different instruments available to the Bulgarian entrepreneurial environment and investors. 

Stoycheva added that the Government is also pursuing the objective of Bulgaria joining NATO’s Defence Innovation Accelerator for the North Atlantic (DIANA).

The NATO Innovation Fund was presented to the Bulgarian public by Benjamin Balmforth, a senior associate at NIF. He added hypersonic systems, energy and propulsion, and next-generation communications networks to the Fund’s areas of interest listed by Stoycheva. 

The NIF is the world's first multi-sovereign venture capital fund, stimulating the trans-Atlantic deep tech landscape, the Fund’s official website says. Twenty-three NATO member states participate in this venture, with Sweden expected to join. The NIF will make direct investments into startups located in any of the 23 participating Allied nations, as well as indirect investments into deep tech funds with a trans-Atlantic impact.

Balmforth specified that direct investments in a project could be between 80% and 90% and indirect investment of between 10% and 20% could be provided to funds in the partnering countries. 

The participants in the NIF are Belgium, Bulgaria, Czechia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Spain, Turkiye, and the UK.