Critical Mass: Dual-Use & Deeptech: Policy, Primes & Pioneers

Name: Critical Mass: Dual-Use & Deeptech: Policy, Primes & Pioneers
Start: 2026-01-29T18:00:00.000+00:00
End: 2026-01-29T21:00:00.000+00:00
Location: One Triton Square

Hosted by Venture Café London & 3 others

One Triton Square

London, England

Past Event

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About Event

📍 1 Triton Square, London NW1 3BF

The geopolitical landscape has fundamentally changed. Critical Mass brings together the wider technology ecosystem and the defence industry to accelerate innovation at the intersection of dual-use, deeptech, and national security.

This event convenes founders, engineers, investors, policymakers, defence primes, and emerging challengers to explore whether, and how, the UK, and wider West have truly adapted to today’s strategic reality. We will examine how policy, procurement, and capital are evolving, and whether they are moving fast enough to support the technologies now critical to resilience, deterrence, and advantage.

Central to the discussion is the emergence of new household names in defence: venture-backed, software-driven, and commercially native. How do these startups different from traditional players in culture, speed, and approach? And what does that mean for collaboration, competition, and capability?

Critical Mass is about breaking silos, aligning incentives, and building the partnerships required to turn deeptech innovation into real-world impact.

Agenda:

6pm - Networking: drinks & pizza

6.15pm - 6.45pm DefTechLink Workshop

DefTechLink will be providing a workshop on how to do business with Defence from start up strategy to how to get real money. Their CEO Erica Dill-Russell will talk about how to find your product market fit, how to engage with users, how to know whether there is money attached to an opportunity and what you need to do to get it. She will also cover some of the most common mistakes they see when companies enter this market.

7pm - Introductory Remarks VC Cafe, Critical Mass & WSGR

7.15pm - Policy Panel: Innovation at the speed of war, are we ready and capable?

Modern conflict is evolving faster than our institutions, technologies, and supply chains can adapt. From rapid advances in AI, autonomy, and space systems to the urgent need for resilient manufacturing and dual-use innovation, the pace of innovation is testing our readiness like never before. This panel brings together leaders in defence innovation to examine whether current innovation ecosystems are fit for purpose and what must change to keep pace in an increasingly contested world.

Speakers

Lt. Col. Dan Sawyer — Head of jHub, UK Strategic Command
Denys Demko — Economic Secretary, Ukraine Embassy
Mariarosaria Taddeo — Professor of Defence Technology, University of Oxford

Moderator

Toby Call — Critical Mass

7.40pm - Fireside Chat: Primes and Neo-Primes: Making Defence Collaboration Work

Defence and aerospace delivery increasingly depends on effective collaboration between established primes, emerging neo-primes, and SMEs. Yet friction around risk, pace, incentives, and trust often gets in the way.

In this fireside discussion, strategy leaders from Babcock and Kraken draw on operational experience and industry insight to explore what collaboration really looks like when it works — and what needs to change for industry to deliver capability faster, at scale, and with confidence.

Speakers