Access to investment and growth opportunities with NATO Innovation Fund
On 17 June 2026, Tanya Suarez, CEO and Founder of IoT Tribe, sat down with John Ridge CBE, Chief Adoption Officer at the NATO Innovation Fund (NIF). For founders navigating defence and dual-use markets, understanding how institutional capital at this scale makes decisions is increasingly essential. We brought John in to share exactly that, as part of IoT Tribe’s ongoing commitment to giving our community direct access to the decision-makers shaping the future of deeptech.
John Ridge CBE: three decades from Helmand to the NIF
Before joining NIF as their first Chief Adoption Officer, John Ridge spent over three decades in the British Armed Forces and Civil Service, commanding troops across three tours of Helmand Province, leading the UK’s Defence Innovation portfolio at the Ministry of Defence and representing the UK on the NATO DIANA Board. He is now responsible for getting NIF’s portfolio companies’ technologies into the hands of end-users across the Alliance. Few people in this space can speak to both the operational realities of defence adoption and the venture capital dynamics shaping the sector, and that combination shaped everything he said.
Co-define the problem or risk obsolescence: why the old procurement model is broken
The traditional model, where the MOD specifies a requirement, hands it to industry and industry builds it, is no longer fit for purpose. Requirements change faster than procurement cycles and locking solutions into fixed contracts guarantees obsolescence before delivery. What’s replacing it is iterative, spiral development and a fundamental shift in when startups enter the picture. The new model brings founders in before the solution is even framed, co-defining the problem rather than just delivering against a brief. The direction of travel, in John’s view, is towards “capability as a service”: annual recurring revenue for drone fleets rather than bulk arsenal purchases. A procurement mindset that looks more like enterprise software than traditional defence contracting, and one that has real implications for how founders should think about their business models.
Movement, not moment: why the shift towards startup-sourced defence tech is accelerating
The trend of sourcing solutions outside traditional prime contractors is accelerating, not reversing. What determines whether it becomes a sustained market shift is whether governments buy, and John cited Germany’s investments in Stark and Helsing as genuine signals of a procurement mindset shifting in the right direction. The opportunity is real, the capital is mobilising, and the question for founders is whether they are building the kind of company that can meet this moment: technically credible, commercially disciplined and genuinely oriented towards the people who will use what they build.
Series A sweet spot, verified claims and why defence experience isn’t a prerequisite: NIF’s real investment criteria
Some of the NIF’s fundamental investment criteria are: does it address a defence, security or resilience need, and is it venture-backable, meaning 10 to 100 times growth potential? Both boxes must be ticked. NIF focuses on Seed to Series B rounds, with first cheques from €2-10m. Battlefield deployment claims are scrutinised hard; NIF always speaks directly to the end user to verify them. And for founders who haven’t yet worked in the defence sector, it is worth knowing that prior experience is not a prerequisite. Part of NIF’s explicit role is opening those doors for the first time.
Commercial to defence, defence to commercial: how NIF really thinks about dual-use
NIF welcomes dual-use, and the resilience bucket is broader than many founders assume. NIF has already backed biotech companies where the defence application represents only 10 to 20 percent of the business, and both directions, commercial to defence and defence to commercial, are viable starting points. The challenge, as John framed it, is operational rather than philosophical: running two complex, slow go-to-market tracks in parallel needs to be sustainable for the founding team and that sustainability question is worth thinking through carefully before pitching dual-use as a strength.
Why DIANA is one of the best routes into NIF – and what founders are missing about its value
NIF proactively goes through DIANA cohorts and engages companies directly. The programme is also attracting increasingly mature companies, because the market now understands its full value: testing and evaluation access, end user connections, the Rapid Adoptions Service (RAS), rather than treating it purely as a source of non-dilutive funding. For founders weighing whether to engage with DIANA, that broader picture is worth factoring in from the start.
Get alongside your end users, design your cap table deliberately and don’t mistake warmth for a contract
John’s direct advice to founders was practical and specific. Get alongside your end users early, because you cannot develop the right solution without them. Design your cap table deliberately, thinking carefully about the right mix of financial investors, strategic investors and potentially a development finance institution, rather than taking whoever comes first. And talk to both DIANA and NIF.
What not to do: mistake a warm conversation for a contract, treat a research and development contract as equivalent to real commercial traction, or assume a senior board hire opens every door.
