London, 11 September 2025 – Make UK Defence yesterday hosted a high-level delegation of venture capital leaders from the United States, who visited its stand at DSEI to explore investment opportunities across the UK defence supply chain. The visit reflects growing international interest in the UK sector following the Government’s commitments to a new Defence Investors’ Advisory Group as part of the Defence Industrial Strategy (DIS), released this week. Make UK Defence are strongly supportive of the UK Government’s efforts to make defence an engine for growth by crowding in private investment to strengthen SME access to contracts, and building resilient supply chains, but also their twin investment aims of creating the next defence unicorn company in the UK within the next decade, and halving the funding gap with the USA on VC funding in the defence manufacturing sector.
The visiting delegation included representatives from some of the world’s most influential venture capital firms: General Catalyst, Andreessen Horowitz, Scout Ventures, 8VC, and Alumni Ventures, together managing over $90 billion in assets. They met with UK SMEs including Filtronic, AML Sheffield, Hyde Group, Open Mind Technologies, Metaverse VR, AERALIS and Perfect Bore, each showcasing British advanced technologies and engineering capabilities with both defence and dual-use applications.
Andrew Kinniburgh, Director General of Make UK Defence, said:
“The presence of such a distinguished group of investors at DSEI underlines the growing recognition that the UK defence sector is not only critical to our security, but also to our economic future. The Defence Industrial Strategy creates clear pathways for SMEs to access investment, scale innovation, and build the infrastructure and skills that will underpin the defence dividend – jobs, growth and resilience across the UK. We look forward to working with global partners to maximise these opportunities.”
