▶ 6:29 · $NEW-QUANTUM · $HORIZON-QUANTUM · Horizon Quantum, European quantum computing leader, recently went public at over $1B valuation

episode briefing

Expeditions back Europe's defence startups with €197m fund: Stanislaw Kastory and Mikolaj Firlej

2026-07-22 · 13 company · 14 thematic

sentiment

12 bull0 bear1 neu

speakers

stanislaw kastory

Stanislaw Kastory co-founded Expedition 5 years ago with Mikolaj Firlej. They started as first-time GPs raising a friends-and-family Fund I, then raised a €197M Fund II from 128 private investors and 6 institutions. He leads investment sourcing through outbound networks and focuses on defense tech, quantum, and cybersecurity.

mikolaj firlej

Mikolaj Firlej co-founded Expedition and led the Fund II raise, navigating institutional restrictions on defense investing. He directs research on European capability gaps (interviewing 50+ stakeholders), portfolio support for government go-to-market, and the firm's thesis on sovereign supply chains and the two-wave defense tech investment cycle.

seb johnson

Seb Johnson hosts the Scaling Europe podcast, interviewing European tech founders and investors at events like Slush in Helsinki.

quote

“Horizon Quantum which is the leader in quantum computing. We've backed both companies very early. In fact, we led the seed round of new quantum and then Horizon Quantum recently uh went public. They are now trading over1 billion US valuati…”

—stanislaw kastory

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