Stratégie Horizon Dual
Stratégie Horizon Dual
Financing dual-use technology scale-ups to strengthen French and European strategic autonomy.
The SHD fund is a long-term investment vehicle designed to support the industrial scale-up and commercial development of dual technology growth SMEs and mid-caps, in the service of French and European strategic autonomy.
Financing scale-ups of dual technologies
Mastering critical and dual technologies is a major issue of sovereignty and competitiveness, in a more demanding geopolitical situation: less open markets and increased technological competition.
In this context, the SHD aims to support the development of innovative technologies in France and Europe, intended for dual civil and defense applications, in strategic sectors such as digital, defense, space and telecoms.
The SHD invests in growth SMEs and mid-caps, in their transition to industrial scale and their international commercial development.
Targeted sectors
The SHD has set itself the objective of supporting companies operating in 4 strategic sectors for the French and European economy:
➔ Future of Compute: Semiconductors, quantum (hard and soft), memories of the future, photonics, application AI
➔ Defense and Security : defense AI, autonomy, anti-aircraft defense, drones/UxV, cyber
➔ Space and Telecoms: Earth observation / intelligence, constellations and equipment, launchers
➔ Robotics: Humanoids, software and autonomy, advanced industrial robotics, perception systems and robotic components
"Faced with the new geopolitical situation, we want to concretely support dual-tech companies so that they can take a step forward, by financing their scale-up: industrialization, production capacities and commercial development. Investing in duals means strengthening our autonomy, securing our supply chains and accelerating innovation in Europe, in the service of French and European strategic autonomy."
Nicolas Dubourg & Patricia Salomon
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of ISALT
At the service of French and European strategic autonomy
Europe has major assets – an accelerating innovation ecosystem, a world-class scientific and academic base – but is struggling to transform these forces into industrial champions.
This European paradox can be explained in particular by a delay in certain critical building blocks, insufficient R&D investment, dependencies on key infrastructures and a lack of development capital to move from innovation to industrialization.
With the SHD, ISALT aims to enable players to accelerate their development towards other markets, in particular from civil to defense, or vice versa.
The creation of the SHD is based on 3 strong convictions
➔ The new geopolitical situation is characterized by the end of the open market model and the acceleration of the development of critical and sovereign technologies;
➔ Europe has unique assets but lacks development capital, limiting the scaling up of technology companies;
➔ Fundraising by European defense tech scale-ups remains dominated by foreign investors, particularly from the United States.