TD Shepherd attended the 2022 annual EDA conference (EDA as in European Defence Agency), which took place on December 8th in Brussels. The conference featured several panel discussions as well as regular keynote speeches. The most important takeaways from the conference were:
— the €70B increase in defence related investments until 2025;
— the recognition of the importance of dual-use technology and its missing support in the current innovation landscape;
— the need for easing procurement rules for the (European) Defence departments;
— and last but not least, the need to be able to rapidly scale production when circumstances require this (industrialization of the supply chain);
— The latter includes the drive to secure (synonymous with “localization”) that same supply chain.
The path to innovation is laden with unique and often substantial cost drivers that set these ventures apart from their more conventional counterparts. To handle these costs effectively, you need to understand them clearly and plan your finances and resources carefully.
At a later stage we will provide a series of postings on how to build and maintain your company’s dashboard. Most importantly, we cover how to use it. The most eloquent dashboard does no good if it is not properly used.
As a Management Team, you need to make the dashboard the central point of engagement.
If your startup is getting acquisition interest, congratulations! But should you sell to a private equity firm or a strategic buyer? Private equity (PE) firms and strategic buyers have fundamentally different financial approaches to M&A. This is because of their contrasting goals, investment strategies, and operational priorities.