Uwe Horstmann
Who they are
Uwe Horstmann is CEO of STARK and General Partner at Project A Ventures — co-founded Project A in 2012 and stepped into STARK's CEO seat in October 2025 to lead European unmanned weapons systems.
Person
Uwe studied at WHU – Otto Beisheim School of Management (BSc) and then at the University of Stuttgart (Master's), a combination that blends business fundamentals with engineering rigour. He co-founded Project A Ventures in Berlin in 2012, building it into one of Europe's leading early-stage tech investors — managing around €1.2B in assets across more than 100 portfolio companies — and spent over a decade there as General Partner. In October 2025 he stepped into the CEO role at STARK, an early-stage Berlin defence tech startup already in Project A's portfolio, building unmanned weapons systems for Europe and NATO; notably, he retained his General Partner title at Project A simultaneously. That hybrid arrangement — operator and investor at once — is unusual and deliberate. His public voice has shifted markedly toward defence tech and European sovereignty: he has spoken at StartSummit on resilience tech, participated in a national-level defence and innovation event in May 2026, and publicly endorsed milestones at portfolio companies Quantum Systems (Series B, unicorn status) and ARX Robotics. The through-line is a conviction that Europe needs its own technology stack for security — and a willingness to step off the sidelines to build it.
Company
STARK is a Berlin-based defence technology company building unmanned weapons systems for Europe and NATO. Uwe Horstmann joined as CEO in October 2025, when STARK was already an early-stage Project A portfolio company — an unusual move where its lead investor became its operating chief. His public content signals active engagement with European defence sovereignty as a strategic framing for the company. STARK sits at the intersection of two converging forces: Europe's post-2022 rearmament urgency and the broader shift of top-tier tech talent and capital into dual-use and defence.
Market
STARK competes in the fast-growing European defence tech segment focused on unmanned and autonomous weapons systems, a space drawing significant NATO-aligned capital. Peer companies publicly endorsed by Horstmann — Quantum Systems (drone systems, now a unicorn after its Series B) and ARX Robotics (defence robotics) — illustrate the cluster of European startups racing to supply militaries that have historically relied on incumbent primes. Regulatory tailwinds from NATO spending commitments and EU defence fund initiatives are accelerating the space, while incumbents from traditional aerospace and defence are slow to match the iteration speed of venture-backed hardware startups.
Network
Horstmann's closest named professional relationship is Jack Wang, a colleague at Project A who covers defence investments — a direct overlap with STARK's domain. His public endorsements of Quantum Systems and ARX Robotics suggest board-level or investor relationships with those founding teams, though specific names aren't surfaced. His network is concentrated in Berlin's venture and defence-tech circles.
- Jack Wang· Defence investment coverage, Project A Ventures
How they likely show up
- Long tenure at Project A (co-founder, 2012 through at least 2025) → thinks in decade-long conviction cycles, not reactive trend-chasing.
- Retained General Partner role while becoming CEO of a portfolio company → comfortable holding structural ambiguity; likely expects collaborators to be equally flexible about roles and boundaries.
- Stepped from investor to operator inside the same company he backed → high agency, willing to put skin in the game rather than just advise from the board.
- Speaking at defence/innovation events (StartSummit, national-level May 2026) → comfortable being publicly identified with a thesis, not just a portfolio.
- Possibly — public writing signal rated 'occasional' → less likely to be a prolific content creator; when he does post, it tends to signal a genuine conviction moment, not volume-driven personal branding.
- Hybrid investor-operator role type → likely runs meetings with a builder's impatience for action and an investor's demand for clear logic; expects both vision and numbers.
Conversation tips
- → Come with a view on European defence sovereignty — he has publicly staked his career on this thesis and will engage substantively with anyone who has done the same homework.
- → Reference a specific portfolio company milestone he endorsed (Quantum Systems' unicorn round, ARX Robotics) rather than speaking generically about 'the defence tech space'.
- → Acknowledge the unusual dual role — CEO of a portfolio company while remaining GP — and ask about how he navigates the tension; it's a deliberate structural bet he's clearly thought through.
- → Don't expect a long warm-up; the move from GP to CEO signals someone oriented toward decisions and action over process.
Toolbox
Openers
- Open on the October 2025 move — he stepped from GP into CEO of STARK, a company he had backed as an investor. That's a rare choice and a strong signal of conviction; lead with curiosity about what he saw that made him cross that line.
- Reference his public endorsement of Quantum Systems reaching unicorn status after its Series B — he posted on it specifically, framing it around dual-use and European defence. It's a window into how he thinks about the category.
- Mention his participation in the national-level defence and innovation event in May 2026 — it signals he's engaging with policy and procurement layers, not just startup ecosystems, and opens a conversation about the go-to-market realities of selling to European militaries.
Discovery questions
- You backed STARK as an investor and then became its CEO — what did you see in the company or the moment that made that the right call over staying on the board?
- You've publicly championed both Quantum Systems and ARX Robotics as milestones for European defence tech — how do you think about the competitive dynamics between companies in the same ecosystem that you're also part of building?
- Running a defence hardware startup and a €1.2B venture fund simultaneously is structurally unusual — how do you keep the two roles from pulling in opposite directions on a week-to-week basis?
Avoid
Don't treat defence tech as a controversial or awkward topic requiring delicate framing — he has moved his career squarely into this space and will disengage if you hedge around it.
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Sources
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Try Brief →Generated by briefthecall.com from public web sources on June 5, 2026. Each claim is linked to its source above.
Automatically generated by AI from public sources. May be inaccurate or out of date. Remove or correct this profile →