welcome to our august newsletter

It's the last month of summer and we're already gearing up for fall! But before we officially kick off the busy season, we have the latest updates from redalpine and our portfolio, including our investment in Cambridge Aerospace, media features in Bilanz, and a busy few days at TechBBQ in Copenhagen. Read on for all this and more!

portfolio funding

redalpine backs Cambridge Aerospace's $300M Series C to strengthen European air defense

Cheap drones are now a defining feature of modern conflict, and effective defense against them is both urgent and undersupplied. Defenders are being forced to respond with interceptors that cost many times more than the threats they neutralize, and traditional air defense systems were simply not designed for this problem.

Cambridge Aerospace is building a more affordable and scalable answer. Founded by Steven Barrett, former head of MIT's Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics and now Regius Professor of Engineering at Cambridge, the company takes a vertically integrated approach to autonomous interceptors. Their first product, Skyhammer, combines a small jet engine with proprietary onboard radar to track and eliminate aerial threats autonomously, in any conditions. Starhammer, their next product, is designed for faster, higher-value targets. Skyhammer has already been tested with the UK Ministry of Defence and validated by the US Army in Europe.

We recently invested as part of their $300M Series C through our multi-stage Summit Fund, drawn by the team's technical depth and the conviction that Europe needs homegrown defense capabilities. Read more in the Financial Times.

portfolio updates

• Flexion Robotics (RAC VII), building the universal intelligence layer for humanoid robots, was featured in Bilanz as one of Switzerland's most exciting deeptech startups. The piece profiles their mission to build a hardware-agnostic operating system that turns any humanoid into a truly autonomous system, regardless of manufacturer. Read more here.

redalpine in the media

Swiss VC meets Silicon Valley: Daniel in Bilanz

Another Bilanz feature! Our Silicon Valley-based GP Daniel Graf spoke to journalist Marc Kowalsky at the World Cup in San Francisco, decked out in full Swiss kit, for the cover feature of their August edition on Swiss VCs operating out of the Valley. He discussed the competitive dynamics shaping venture right now, in which areas Silicon Valley is still setting the pace, and where European founders are closing the gap. Decades of experience at Google, Uber, and X, plus 100+ angel investments give Daniel a perspective that is hard to replicate.

event highlights

redalpine had a full couple of days at TechBBQ 2026! Both Harald and Bettina spoke on stage, with Harald joining Ahmed Ismail from our portfolio company Dunia Innovations and Seadna Quigley from Level Nine for a session on STEM Sovereignty and Strategic Autonomy in Continental Europe. The thesis: Europe cannot build strategic autonomy through regulation alone. It will be built by founders creating the technologies the continent cannot afford to depend on others for.

Bettina spoke with journalist Mike Butcher and Lucas de Jong from Endel Sound about the evolving role of the CFO. The key takeaway: AI is eating the busywork of reporting, reconciliation and forecasting. What remains is judgment and helping organisations navigate the change that AI itself enables. The era of the back-office operator is over.On the sidelines, Sofie organised an LP gathering that brought together a curated group of Nordic investors for a more intimate conversation about the European tech opportunity.

Thank you to the TechBBQ team for putting together such a strong program. See you next year.

For this year’s redalpine Summer Event, our teams from Zug, Berlin, London, and San Francisco came together in Switzerland to swap pitch decks for wooden planks and build their own soapbox cars. Six teams designed, built, decorated, and raced their carts on a warm summer evening, with varying levels of engineering expertise. It was a lesson that great teams are built with creativity, trust, and (occasionally) by falling out of a shoddily built wooden car together ;)