Hyperion—a vehicle planning to invest in defense-applied technology companies—secures new investors and hits its €150 million fundraising target within six months.
Hyperion Fund, a vehicle led by the former president of the PP (People’s Party), Pablo Casado, which focuses on investing in technology companies within the defense, aerospace, cybersecurity, and artificial intelligence sectors, has secured investment commitments from major corporations such as Indra, Sapa, and Prosegur, as well as Fond-Ico, the investment subsidiary of the Official Credit Institute (ICO).
According to several sources familiar with the matter, these are individual investments of around €10 million each. They join previous commitments from Nortia—the family office of Cirsa’s founder, Manuel Lao—and Seaya Ventures, a vehicle founded by Beatriz González (daughter of the former chairman of BBVA), alongside other funds such as Serena, Q-Energy, and McWin.
With this new investor round, the fund led by the former leader of the opposition until 2022 has achieved a qualitative leap, hitting its €150 million target in just over six months. This represents a significant milestone for a newly created fund whose managers come from widely diverse backgrounds. El País/CincoDías contacted Hyperion Fund, Indra, Prosegur, Sapa, and ICO, but all declined to comment.
Bringing profitability to the defense sector
Hyperion Fund FCR (the Spanish acronym for Private Equity/Venture Capital Fund) launched early this year to capitalize on the growing value of technology applied to the defense sector. This comes amid a rising consensus among Western nations on the need to reinforce security capabilities due to escalating military and geopolitical conflicts.
The fund’s strategy involves an investment cycle of around 15 companies over a 10-to-12-year period, targeting a return close to 20%. The managers are set to receive performance fees (carried interest) ranging between 8% and 20%. Their objective is to acquire non-controlling stakes of under 50% in their portfolio companies while securing seats on their boards of directors.
Alongside Casado, Hyperion Fund is co-led by Joaquín Ortiz Escobar, former strategy director at Sapa and ex-advisor to the Ministry of Defense under Pedro Morenés, as well as to the government itself during the People’s Party administration.
They are joined by José Antonio Bartrina, former secretary-general of the Spanish Association of Defense, Security, Aeronautics, and Space Technology Companies (TEDAE); financial professional Daniel Lorrain (formerly of Capital One); and Ricardo Gómez-Acebo Botín, nephew of the chairwoman of Santander, who brings international investment banking experience from firms like Morgan Stanley.
The fund has also established an advisory board featuring prominent figures from the global defense and investment arenas. These include former NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen; Paula Dobriansky, former US Under Secretary of State for Global Affairs and former National Security Council Director for European and Soviet Affairs; former French Defense Minister Michèle Alliot-Marie; and renowned tech investors Martín Varsavsky and Nicole Junkermann. Other notable members include Richard Hurowitz, strategic advisor to Rothschild; Robert Murray, former head of innovation at NATO; and Ilan Leiferman, head of cybersecurity for startups at Amazon Web Services.
The project is built on the premise of an unprecedented geopolitical crisis, with active conflicts in Europe and the Middle East, alongside institutional instability in Africa and Latin America. This landscape is driving Western states toward historic levels of security spending. EU defense expenditure is projected to increase to €453 billion in 2026—a 53% surge over five years—and reach €1 trillion by 2030. However, Hyperion’s investments comply with Article 8 ESG standards, which prohibit investing in lethal military equipment. Furthermore, all the technology they target is dual-use, meaning military applications can be adapted for civilian use, ultimately benefiting society.
Countries such as Spain, France, Germany, Italy, the UK, Greece, Poland, and Sweden have committed to increasing their defense budgets. The Spanish government has pledged to raise defense spending to 2% of GDP by 2029, implying a jump from €11.3 billion in 2022 to over €25.0 billion by the end of the decade.
In this scenario, Spain is emerging as a key hub, home to at least fifty cutting-edge defense technology firms. Hyperion’s investment scope revolves around a value chain comprising 500 Spanish companies, led by prominent players such as Airbus, ITP Aero, Sener, Navantia, GMV, Telefónica, and investors like Indra and Sapa themselves. Major global private equity firms, including KKR,
Carlyle, and Bain Capital, alongside multinationals like Leonardo, Rheinmetall, BAE Systems, and Thales, are also placing multi-million-dollar bets on the sector.
Against this background, defense-focused companies like Indra, Sapa, and Prosegur are choosing to back initiatives like Hyperion. In fact, Sapa Placencia already holds a nearly 8% stake in Indra, which is currently drafting a strategic plan aimed at expanding its footprint in defense and technology projects.
The investment thesis framed by Hyperion Fund is further supported by the stock growth of firms like Indra, whose largest shareholder is the Spanish State through the SEPI holding company (holding 27.99% of the share capital). At the end of 2020, shares in the company led by Marc Murtra and José Vicente de los Mozos stood at €5.50. Ahead of this summer, they neared €22.00 per share, though they have since corrected to trade at around €17.00. The question hanging over the venture is whether Pablo Casado and his team are arriving late to the valuation surge in the defense tech universe.