Helsing

Evidence cutoff · 9 November 2026. The labels distinguish official records, independent reporting and company or partner disclosures.

The investigation at a glance

• £3.17m in external sales. Helsing Limited reported £70.27m in 2025 turnover. Other Helsing entities accounted for £67.10m. Official record · UK subsidiary accounts. ^[1]
• About 4,300 HX-2 systems. The Bundeswehr confirms the contract. German trade reporting puts the first order under the contract at about 4,300. The Financial Times reported €269m initially and up to €1.46bn with options. Serial acceptance and payments remain unverified. Official record and independent reporting. ^{[4] [5] [6]}
• Battlefield performance is disputed. Bloomberg reported launch and jamming problems in Ukraine. Helsing disputed the account and said it was delivering several hundred drones a month. The sources reviewed did not establish accepted delivery totals or an independent mission success rate. Disputed evidence. ^{[7] [8]}

THE PEOPLE BEHIND HELSING

Meet the founders

Gundbert Scherf

Co-founder and co-CEO

Worked in Germany’s Federal Ministry of Defence before co-founding Helsing.

• Helsing · Company fact sheet

Photo: Helsing · Press kit terms

Torsten Reil

Co-founder and co-CEO

Co-founded NaturalMotion, whose animation technology was used in films and games including Grand Theft Auto.

• Helsing · Company fact sheet
• Financial Times · Interview with Torsten Reil

Photo: Helsing · Press kit terms

Niklas Köhler

Co-founder

Has a background in AI research and founded Hellsicht, the start-up that inspired Helsing’s name.

• Helsing · Company fact sheet
• Augsburger Allgemeine · Reporting on the origin of Helsing’s name

Photo: Helsing · Press kit terms

Key terms in plain English

• Turnover / revenue is sales recorded in the accounts. Operating profit or loss (EBIT) is the result before interest and tax. Net result is profit or loss after those items.
• Net liabilities means the company’s liabilities exceed its assets at the reporting date. Intragroup means between companies in the same group. External means outside the group.
• Funding round is a round of investment. A valuation is the value placed on the company in that round. Cash burn is the rate at which a company uses cash.
• Electronic warfare (EW) uses or disrupts electronic signals. Qualification is testing against required standards before a customer approves a system for the intended use.

1. Who owns it and who runs it

Company names. GmbH is a German limited-liability company, broadly like a UK Ltd. SE is a European company form. Helsing GmbH and Helsing SE are distinct companies within the group.

Helsing was founded in Munich in 2021. The company dates the SE’s commercial registration to 2 June 2025. Its GmbH accounts date the controlling relationship to 11 June 2025. These dates refer to distinct corporate events. ^[12] Its 2024 filing identifies Helsing GmbH, Munich HRB 264368, as the original parent of its subsidiaries and records Helsing SE as its controlling company from 11 June 2025. Helsing Germany GmbH, Munich HRB 229885, is a separate entity. In the UK, Helsing Limited was incorporated on 9 June 2021 and is active under company number 13447361. Its public control page shows the former Helsing GmbH entry as ceased and records zero active individual or entity entries alongside one active statement. The registry’s significant-control page and the financial statements answer different questions. Note 23 of the UK entity’s 2025 accounts identifies Helsing GmbH as its immediate parent and Helsing SE as its ultimate controlling party. Note 21 describes the UK company as wholly owned. The filing does not give post-Series E shareholder voting rights at Helsing SE. ^{[1] [13]} · ^[14] · ^[15]

Documented UK ownership chain. Helsing SE is the ultimate controlling party. Helsing GmbH is the immediate parent of Helsing Limited. The German GmbH filing also identifies Helsing Germany GmbH and Helsing SAS as wholly owned at its 2024 balance-sheet date. The UK control register and the accounts describe the ownership structure under different reporting rules. ^[1] · ^[13]

Sources ^[16] · ^[17] · ^[18] · ^[9] · ^[19]

Sources ^[20] · ^[21] · ^[22]

Helsing describes itself as predominantly European-owned. The public sources reviewed establish participation and some board representation. Exact stakes, share-class votes, veto rights, liquidation preferences and the ultimate control position after Series E remain unverified. Saab appears both as an investor and as an industrial partner. Assess each relationship separately when following how work was awarded. ^[9] · ^[23]

A historical ownership benchmark. Saab disclosed a €75m cash investment for a 5% stake in Helsing GmbH in September 2023. Its current interest and voting rights after later rounds remain open. Helsing said its board membership stayed the same after Series E. The disclosure leaves observer and consent rights open. ^[24] · ^[9]

UK capital after year-end. An SH01 filed on 28 October 2026 records an allotment on 30 September of 29,081,115 ordinary shares, with £1 nominal value and £1 paid per share. The UK subsidiary’s resulting issued share capital was £29,081,116. The form reports the terms of the allotment and does not identify the subscribers. How the transaction flowed through cash and intercompany accounts requires later financial statements. ^[25]

2. Funding, financials and the revenue gap

How to read the accounts. Standalone accounts cover one legal company. Transactions with other Helsing companies can appear in those accounts. Consolidated group accounts combine the companies and remove transactions between them. The German and UK figures below cover different companies and currencies.

Sources ^[26] · ^[27] · ^[23] · ^[28] · ^[9] · ^[29]

German company accounts

Revenue rose roughly 180%, while the business still made an operating loss at this entity. The filing attributes the increase in interest income to capital contributions and the rise in affiliated receivables mainly to short-term financing provided to subsidiaries. Cash on a single balance-sheet date cannot establish cash burn. The filing’s €27m–€30m revenue outlook for 2025 was management’s forecast for this entity. It should be kept separate from realised sales. Consolidated 2025–26 revenue, margins, free cash flow, liquidity, backlog and IPO timing remain unverified. ^[13] · ^[30]

UK subsidiary accounts

The 2025 accounts, filed on 12 August 2026, explain that the UK company took on more group support and service functions. Internal services were 95.5% of 2025 turnover and accounted for 99.0% of the increase from 2024. External services revenue grew 23.4%. The £9.53m after-tax profit includes a £6.40m net tax credit, primarily from deferred tax. The strategic report says the UK company relied on ongoing financial support from Helsing GmbH. Its accounting policy describes the intercompany services as billed on a cost-plus basis. At year-end the company still reported net liabilities of £17.86m. Intercompany services are eliminated on group consolidation, so the UK turnover and German standalone revenue cannot be added to estimate group sales. The filing says Helsing SE prepares consolidated statements. This review did not obtain a copy. Printed pages 12–13 contain the primary statements, page 22 contains the turnover split and page 28 identifies the parent companies. ^[30] · ^[1]

3. Contract money trail

How to read the contract figures. A framework sets terms for future orders. A call-off is an order placed under it. A ceiling is the maximum potential value, and options are additional purchases the buyer may choose to make. Acceptance is the customer’s formal sign-off on a delivery. An award, acceptance and payment are separate milestones.

Sources ^[6] · ^[35] · ^[8] · ^[19] · ^[10] · ^[36] · ^[37] · ^[38] · ^[39]

From approval to use. ES&T dates budget approval to 25 February. The Bundeswehr confirms signature on 26 February and describes performance milestones that can trigger termination. In early October, the ministry told hartpunkt that both HX-2 and STARK’s Virtus still had qualification work remaining. Handelsblatt subsequently reported that Helsing had received more time for a necessary test. The ministry confirmed an extension for one supplier without identifying it. On 6 November, Soldat & Technik quoted a German Army spokesperson saying both systems were due to take part in Panzerbrigade 45’s *Freedom Shield* exercise, scheduled to start in Lithuania on 17 November. Full qualification, actual exercise participation, serial acceptance and payment remained unverified at the cutoff. The signed pricing schedule would be needed to separate the cost of the aircraft from launch equipment, training, support and other items. ^[4] · ^[40] · ^[41] · ^[42] · ^[11]

UK framework and funded work. The MoD record lists a 9 January award date, publication on 14 January and a supplier period beginning 26 January 2026. Its £1 entry is a nominal framework value and its £180m ceiling is shared across the programme. The record establishes Helsing’s place on the procurement route. No Helsing-specific funded call-off under this framework was verified in this pass. ^[33]

The available figures cover different stages of procurement. The initial HX-2 value is a reported supplier-level figure, CFSN is a consortium-wide estimate and DDAD has a shared spending ceiling. Purchase orders, deliveries, customer acceptance, payments and recognised revenue each require separate evidence.

4. Products, tests and maturity

Sources ^[43] · ^[44] · ^[45] · ^[37] · ^[46] · ^[47]

Sources ^[20]

Where the Ukraine evidence diverges

Bloomberg’s January 2026 account, also covered by Ukrainska Pravda, described launch problems, jamming-related loss of links and questions about which autonomy features were present in trial units. Helsing said the system had been approved for frontline use, that more than six units had made requests, and that one testing unit wanted more than 1,000 additional drones. It also cited very high hit rates in tests outside Ukraine. Helsing’s July statement adds a claim of deployments in the thousands, without a reconciliation against the original 6,000 or publicly inspectable acceptance and mission logs. The accounts can describe different time periods, units and procurement steps. The underlying records needed to resolve the disagreement were unavailable. ^[7] · ^[48] · ^[8] · ^[19]

October 2026 follow-up. Janes reported an industry source’s account of growing Ukrainian demand for HX-2 LT in areas where Starlink is unavailable, and of thousands of HX-2 missions since October 2025. The report adds later evidence of reported demand and use. Its unnamed industry source does not establish a funded order, accepted quantity, or mission success rate. Janes separately reported that Helsing claimed a 100% strike rate in the Sentinel Strike Challenge in Portugal, including testing under satellite-navigation denial. The European Defence Agency named Helsing Germany as one of five participants and said winners were expected in early 2027. The agency’s October release confirms participation and contested test scenarios. A complete scorecard and denominator for Helsing’s claim remain unavailable here. ^{[49] [50]} · ^[51]

The key test of electronic-warfare resilience is performance by model and software revision, with a denominator that includes failed launches and aborted missions. Navigation without satellite signals, maintaining a command link, correctly identifying a target and executing an operator’s abort command are different capabilities. A peer-reviewed review by Jarraya and colleagues identifies limitations in relying on a single sensor and describes combining methods as a way to address them. The paper concerns the field generally and provides no HX-2 test results. ^[52]

5. Factories, acquisitions and partnerships

• Germany. Helsing announced its southern German RF-1 factory as operational in February 2025 with an initial capacity above 1,000 HX-2 units a month. Capacity is a rate the company says the factory can support. The disclosure does not supply realised monthly output, yield, accepted units or component provenance. Helsing’s German accounts record the June 2025 acquisition of Grob Aircraft, and Grob now identifies itself as a group member. The purchase price remains open. ^{[2] [35]} · ^[53]
• United Kingdom and Australia. The University of Plymouth and Invest Plymouth documented the official opening of Helsing’s first UK Resilience Factory. Council papers identify the Langage site. The factory is intended to produce SG-1 Fathom undersea gliders as part of the wider £350m UK investment commitment. ^[54] The £350m figure describes investment plans by the company. The exact capital spent, jobs filled and output are open. Helsing announced the proposed acquisition of Blue Ocean in October 2025 and confirmed completion in an update dated 29 May 2026. Blue Ocean identified Helsing Australia Pty Ltd as the acquirer and Blue Ocean Monitoring Limited as the target. Shareholders approved the scheme on 26 March 2026, and a notice scheduled the second court hearing for 19 May. Ashurst’s analysis of the court proceedings describes base cash consideration of A$3 per share plus contingent payments tied to qualifying defence contracts. The aggregate consideration and any earn-outs paid remain open. ^{[55] [56]} · ^{[57] [58]} · ^[59] · ^[3]
• United States. West Virginia’s governor announced an initial $50m company investment and at least 60 planned jobs in Berkeley County, with the factory intended to manufacture HX-2 first. Separately, Axios reported U.S. Army use of the HX-2 at Project Flytrap in Lithuania and quoted the Army’s chief technology officer confirming Helsing’s presence. The exercise and site announcement establish two distinct milestones. Factory spend, actual output, formal U.S. procurement and a public acceptance record remain unverified. ^[60] · ^[61]
• Warhead suppliers. Helsing and EURENCO signed a memorandum in June 2026 to develop European warheads for HX-2, initially for French requirements. Helsing also identified an existing relationship with Instalaza. The public announcement does not quantify firm orders, deliveries or the share of each supplier in actual production. ^[62]
• France, Sweden and the wider European network. France is part of Helsing’s operating footprint, and Helsing and Mistral announced joint research on vision-language-action models. Saab collaborated on Gripen flight testing and on Eurofighter electronic warfare. Helsing and Destinus announced a commercial partnership in October 2026 to offer joint systems, with Helsing participating in a Destinus financing round. Helsing also announced a space collaboration with Kongsberg. These disclosures establish relationships. Programme-by-programme orders and funded commitments require separate evidence. ^[63] · ^[44] · ^[64] · ^[65]

• Estonia. Helsing announced Helsing Estonia OÜ and pledged €70m of investment in Baltic defence industry over three years in July 2024. A subsequent joint statement described plans for facilities. Site spending and payments received under government contracts remain separate questions. ^[66]

The Ocean Infinity connection. In April 2025, Blue Ocean publicly named Helsing, Ocean Infinity and QinetiQ as partners in a maritime autonomy collaboration. Janes separately reported that the MoD was in final negotiations with an Ocean Infinity-led team for Atlantic Net. The partnership establishes an existing link among the firms. The final contract and subcontractor roster are still needed to establish Helsing’s role in Atlantic Net. ^[67] · ^[39]

6. Political access and government oversight

The active Bundestag entry for Helsing Germany GmbH, R007617, reports €520,001–€530,000 in 2025 lobbying expenses and 2.30 full-time equivalents. The historical Helsing GmbH entry, R002021, shows former status from November 2025 and reports €0 on that entry for 2024. These figures refer to different legal entities and should be kept separate. The active entry documents declared lobbying, which is evidence of activity and spending. Award influence would require evidence linking communications to a decision. ^[68] · ^[69]

Holding-company filing. Helsing SE has its own entry, R007552, with 2025 lobbying expenditure in the €1–€10,000 band. The operating company separately lists Helsing SE as a client for lobbying activity. The declarations document which entities report activity and are insufficient to establish a consolidated group lobbying figure. ^[70] · ^[68]

The UK appointments watchdog published advice on former No. 10 press secretary Lucy Noakes’s move to a Helsing UK communications role. It recorded that she had not met Helsing while in office, had applied through open advertisement and had held no decision-making role specific to the company or sector. The committee assessed the risk of the job being perceived as a reward as low and advised that she should not initiate government engagement for Helsing UK. The record gives a specific basis for assessing the move and its restrictions. Political donations and lobbying at EU institutions were not comprehensively reconciled for this edition. ^[22]

James Heappey. ACOBA records the former Armed Forces minister’s paid adviser role and a 2023 meeting with Helsing while in office. The Ministry of Defence reported that he made no regulatory, commercial or policy decision specific to Helsing, while noting his influence on broader defence AI policy. The published conditions addressed lobbying, bids and use of privileged information. This records contact and safeguards. The letter does not establish preferential treatment in any procurement decision. ^[21]

7. IP, accountability and competitive position

Software control. The MissionOSBw report makes a stronger claim than a general commitment to open interfaces. It describes transfer of code, documentation and a development kit to BAAINBw. The next evidence would be licensing schedules, rights to build and sign production software, and proof a third party can integrate a replacement independently. An EPO publication also identifies Helsing GmbH as applicant for EP4365779A1, on monitoring AI-model performance. That publication establishes an application and a disclosed method. Current grant and family status, product use and the complete patent portfolio require register checks. ^[10] · ^[71]

Human control. Helsing says a human stays in or on the loop for critical HX-2 decisions. The two phrases can imply different roles, from approving a specific action to supervising behaviour after authorisation. Procurement evaluation should look at operator permissions, abort options after communications loss, target re-identification, training, auditable logs and incident investigations. For undersea surveillance, the parallel questions concern false positives, who can task the sensors, and who controls the acoustic data. The public materials reviewed give limited visibility into these operational details. ^[43] · ^[46]

Industrial oversight and public impact. The expansion into airframes, maritime systems and munitions brings production quality, safety oversight, export licensing and end-use controls into the investigation. The supplier disclosures identify some industrial relationships, while the reviewed sources leave component provenance, incident records, individual export licences and the scope of government access to operational data open. For a public buyer, the relevant tests include independent safety review, visibility into decisions made by the software and the ability to change a supplier or suspend use.

Comparison. Anduril is the strongest overall comparator because both firms combine software with autonomous hardware and manufacturing. Shield AI is a narrower comparison for onboard combat-air autonomy. STARK is a direct comparator in the German loitering-munition procurement. Palantir overlaps at the level of military data integration and decision workflows. Its broader enterprise data platform has a different commercial scope from Helsing’s reconnaissance-to-strike software. ^[72] · ^[73] · ^[74]

8. Evidence needed to close the investigation

• Group financials and control. Obtain Helsing SE’s consolidated accounts and ownership filings, then reconcile the June 2025 reorganisation, the UK standalone accounts, Grob and Blue Ocean perimeter changes, intercompany balances and post-Series E share rights.
• Germany’s contract trail. Obtain the underlying HX-2 budget submission, signed contracts, first call-off schedule and any subsequent call-offs, acceptance records and payment schedules. Obtain CFSN workshare and the MissionOSBw licence schedule.
• Ukraine performance. Reconcile the 4,000 HF-1 and 6,000 HX-2 announcements against batch-level records. Separate orders, deliveries, operational approval, sorties and confirmed effects. Seek full trial denominators and software version details.
• UK maritime procurement. Confirm the Atlantic Net award and named subcontractors. Identify separate purchase orders and acceptance documentation. Reconcile the Blue Ocean transaction price and the UK and Australian subsidiary perimeter.
• Industrial resilience. Obtain factory output and yield, supplier and country-of-origin data, ownership of production tooling, site-level spending and evidence of the ability to substitute critical components.
• Oversight. Reconcile German and EU lobbying filings by entity and year, procurement conflicts registers, political donations where disclosed, export approvals, safety reviews and incident reporting. Public product and partner announcements alone leave these questions open.

Evidence was classified as statutory or government record, independently reported, company or partner claim, or unresolved. A partner demonstration confirms the milestone that partner describes. Production targets, investment plans, framework ceilings and operational claims require different evidence before they can be compared.

Conclusion

The evidence documents Helsing’s move into weapons manufacturing through acquisitions, procurement and tests. The financial disclosures are narrower. They identify how the German and UK entities operated and how much capital investors committed in announced rounds. They leave group earnings and cash consumption unverified.

Three records would change the assessment most: consolidated accounts showing the economics of the full group, procurement and acceptance records showing what customers have received and paid for, and independent mission-level results showing what the equipment can do under contested conditions. Until those are available, the strength of each conclusion depends on the specific milestone its source documents.

Principal source register

Publication audit

• Retained from the filings. The UK standalone turnover split, the parent chain, the German standalone results and the entity-specific German lobbying declarations.
• Retained with attribution. The 4,300-unit figure, HX-2 option value, the CFSN programme estimate and the MissionOSBw handover. The sources establish different levels of certainty for each.
• Excluded from the findings. An implied HX-2 unit price, a valuation-to-revenue multiple derived from subsidiary accounts, unverified intermediate ownership links and any battlefield success rate presented as independently established.
• Evidence still open. Post-Series E voting rights, consolidated financials, full HX-2 acceptance and payment records, and Ukrainian mission-level performance data.

1. Companies House · Helsing Limited 2025 accounts, notes 4 and 23
2. Grob Aircraft · Company history and Helsing ownership
3. Helsing · Blue Ocean completion update
4. Bundeswehr · Loitering munition procurement and contract milestones
5. ES&T · Reported first HX-2 call-off
6. Financial Times · Initial contract value and options
7. Bloomberg · Ukrainian trial reporting, 19 January 2026
8. Helsing · Response to Bloomberg, 19 January 2026
9. Helsing · Series E and board disclosure, 13 July 2026
10. Reuters · MissionOSBw handover
11. Soldat & Technik · Planned Freedom Shield exercise
12. Helsing SE announcement
13. German filing
14. Helsing Germany GmbH filing
15. UK control register
16. Founders and offices
17. Founders’ backgrounds
18. Enders appointment
19. Shevchenko appointment
20. Executive appointments
21. Heappey advice
22. Noakes advice
23. Series C disclosure
24. Saab investment announcement
25. Companies House SH01, sections 2–4
26. Early financing
27. Series B
28. Series D
29. Reuters via Euronext
30. UK filing index
31. Saab orders
32. Saab approval
33. Official award data
34. Award notice mirror
35. 2025 Ukraine announcement
36. FCAS
37. Eurofighter
38. UK parliamentary answer
39. Janes
40. hartpunkt, first call-off
41. Ministry response via hartpunkt
42. Handelsblatt
43. HX-2 and Altra
44. Gripen tests
45. CA-1
46. SG-1 and Lura
47. Contra
48. Ukrainska Pravda summary
49. EDA event report
50. Janes
51. European Defence Agency
52. Jarraya et al. · Satellite Navigation, 2025
53. Grob
54. Opening record
55. Scheme analysis
56. Target’s shareholder notice
57. Court hearing notice
58. UK government
59. Plymouth cabinet papers
60. West Virginia governor
61. Axios
62. EURENCO agreement
63. Mistral
64. Destinus
65. Kongsberg
66. Estonia announcement and joint statement
67. Partnership announcement
68. Active entry
69. Historical entry
70. Helsing SE entry
71. European Patent Office
72. US Army on Lattice and Foundry
73. Shield AI
74. Bundestag procurement record
75. Reuters coverage