Project A Participates in €500 Million Funding Round for Defense Startup Stark

Berlin – Project A is parti­ci­pa­ting in a EUR 500 million finan­cing round for the defense startup Stark. YPOG provi­ded compre­hen­sive advice to Project A on struc­tu­ring the invest­ment vehic­les and the Series C invest­ment in the Berlin-based defense startup Stark. The advi­sory services covered regu­la­tory, tax, and corpo­rate law issues, as well as tran­sac­tion support for the EUR 500 million finan­cing round. The round was led by Sequoia Capi­tal and Foun­ders Fund, among others. 

Stark is a defense tech­no­logy company foun­ded in 2024 and head­quar­te­red in Berlin. The company deve­lops soft­­ware-driven, AI-powered unman­ned systems for Euro­pean and NATO armed forces—including loite­ring muni­ti­ons and swarm technology—that are opera­tio­nal even in highly conge­sted elec­tro­nic envi­ron­ments. Stark is one of the fastest-growing defense start­ups in Europe and colla­bo­ra­tes with the German Armed Forces (Bundes­wehr) and other NATO part­ner nati­ons, among others, which are alre­ady using systems such as the Virtus plat­form in procu­re­ment and test­ing programs. 

More than 80% of the newly raised capi­tal is to be inves­ted directly in rese­arch, deve­lo­p­ment, and the expan­sion of produc­tion capa­city in Europe—including addi­tio­nal rese­arch faci­li­ties in the field of elec­tro­nic warfare and scaling up produc­tion to seve­ral thousand systems per month. Most recently, Stark expan­ded into the United King­dom and Sweden, acqui­red the Berlin-based soft­ware company Pleno, and secu­red a contract from the German Armed Forces worth 268 million EUR. 

“This mandate demons­tra­tes how tran­sac­tion advi­sory and fund struc­tu­ring go hand in hand at YPOG—from struc­tu­ring invest­ment vehic­les and desig­ning tax struc­tures, to navi­ga­ting regu­la­tory frame­works, to nego­tia­ting with inves­tors,” says Dr. Stephan Bank, part­ner at YPOG (photo).

“We are plea­sed to support Project A in this signi­fi­cant finan­cing round for Stark. The tran­sac­tion marks another mile­stone in our long-stan­­ding colla­bo­ra­tion, during which we have had the oppor­tu­nity to provide legal support to Project A on nume­rous tech­­no­­logy-driven invest­ments,” adds Dr. Frede­rik Gärt­ner, a part­ner at YPOG.

YPOG and Project A have a long-stan­­ding part­ner­ship. The law firm has been advi­sing Project A for seve­ral years on nume­rous finan­cing rounds and tran­sac­tions and has also supported the venture capi­tal inves­tor from the very begin­ning in struc­tu­ring and setting up all of its invest­ment vehicles. 

Team YPOG:

Struc­tu­ring:
Dr. Stephan Bank (Lead, Funds), Part­ner, Berlin
Dr. Helder Schnitt­ker (Lead, Tax Struc­tu­ring), Part­ner, Berlin
Lenn­art Lorenz (Regu­la­tory), Part­ner, Hamburg
Dr. Saskia Bong (Co-Lead, Funds), Asso­ciate Part­ner, Berlin
Dr. Dajo Sanning (Tax Struc­tu­ring), Asso­ciate Part­ner, Hamburg
Dr. Wolf­ram Dickers­bach (Tax Struc­tu­ring), Senior Asso­ciate, Hamburg
Fran­ziska Wüst (Funds), Asso­ciate, Berlin

Tran­sac­tion:
Dr. Frede­rik Gärt­ner (Lead, Tran­sac­tions), Part­ner, Berlin
Dr. Sarah Sostak (Tran­sac­tions), Asso­ciate, Berlin

www.ypog.com