{"podcast":{"title":"Scaling Europe","slug":"scaling-europe-7780754","podcast_index_feed_id":7780754,"rss_url":"https://anchor.fm/s/108a8a74c/podcast/rss","website_url":"https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/scaling-europe","image_url":"https://d3t3ozftmdmh3i.cloudfront.net/staging/podcast_uploaded_nologo/44302379/44302379-1756114015030-846dc0246eba9.jpg","author":"Sebastian Johnson","episode_count":223,"summary":"Every week Seb Johnson sits down with 5 of Europe's best builders and investors to talk about what's going on in European Tech. Prior guests include the founders of Lovable, Cleo, Voi an Zilch, as well as top VCs from 20VC, Index, Balderton and Creandum.","last_synced_at":"2026-07-27T22:17:10.818712+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/scaling-europe-7780754"},"episode":{"title":"Stanislaw Kastory and Mikolaj Firlej, Co-founders and General Partners at Expeditions: Backing Europe's defence startups with €197m fund","slug":"stanislaw-kastory-and-mikolaj-firlej-co-founders-and-general-partners-at-expeditions-backing-europe-s-defence-startups-with-197m-fund","published_at":"2026-07-22T09:00:00+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/scaling-europe-7780754/stanislaw-kastory-and-mikolaj-firlej-co-founders-and-general-partners-at-expeditions-backing-europe-s-defence-startups-with-197m-fund","show_page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/scaling-europe-7780754","url":"https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/scaling-europe/episodes/Stanislaw-Kastory-and-Mikolaj-Firlej--Co-founders-and-General-Partners-at-Expeditions-Backing-Europes-defence-startups-with-197m-fund-e3mc0ov","audio_url":"https://anchor.fm/s/108a8a74c/podcast/play/123125983/https%3A%2F%2Fd3ctxlq1ktw2nl.cloudfront.net%2Fstaging%2F2026-6-21%2F428352419-44100-2-aaf403b5188ea.mp3","summary":"Expeditions is one of Europe's only venture funds dedicated to defence and security startups. The firm recently closed its second fund at €197m. Stanislaw Kastory and Mikolaj Firlej are Co-founders and General Partners at Expeditions. The firm backs early-stage teams across defence, cybersecurity, quantum and space technology. The new fund plans to make around 40 early-stage investments, with half its capital reserved for follow-on rounds. The Scaling Europe show is presented by Deel. Check them out here: ⁠https://get.deel.com/ruynb7o4lfjk⁠ Sponsors: Chargebee: ⁠https://www.chargebee.com/events/beelieve/london/2026⁠ SurrealDB: ⁠https://surrealdb.com/⁠ Airwallex: ⁠https://www.airwallex.com/uk?utm_source=other&utm_medium=partner_referral&utm_campaign=v01_emea_multi_ib_dg_prtmk_mofu_scalingeurope⁠ Lovable: ⁠https://lovable.dev/⁠ Timestamps: 0:00 - Introduction 0:08 - Expeditions closes its €197m second fund 1:04 - How raising fund two differed from fund one 4:23 - Fund one's early bets in defence tech 7:10 - What's different about fund two's strategy 9:40 - Where Europe's biggest defence gaps are 12:36 - How Expeditions finds and evaluates startups 16:20 - Do European countries compete for their own defence champions? 19:52 - Financing war vs. financing European defence","meta_description":"Expeditions is one of Europe's only venture funds dedicated to defence and security startups. The firm recently closed its second fund at €197m. Stanislaw…","key_points":[],"chapters":[],"topics":[],"duration_seconds":1310,"processing_state":"not_requested","actions":[{"name":"request_transcript","method":"POST","url":"https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/scaling-europe-7780754/episodes/stanislaw-kastory-and-mikolaj-firlej-co-founders-and-general-partners-at-expeditions-backing-europe-s-defence-startups-with-197m-fund/transcription-requests","description":"Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode."},{"name":"read_markdown","method":"GET","url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/scaling-europe-7780754/stanislaw-kastory-and-mikolaj-firlej-co-founders-and-general-partners-at-expeditions-backing-europe-s-defence-startups-with-197m-fund.md","description":"Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource."}]}}