European defence budgets have moved further in three years than in the previous twenty. The capital following them has not developed the same speed.

The mandate changed; the diligence did not

Funds that would not have taken a defence meeting in 2021 now hold a dedicated allocation. What most of them do not yet hold is a defence diligence process. The result is a market where capital is genuinely available and genuinely slow, and sponsors routinely mistake the second condition for the first.

Export control, end-user restriction and dual-use classification are not footnotes in this sector. They are the deal. A supplier with strong margins and an unresolved export position is not a pricing discussion, it is a structuring one, and it is far better raised in the first meeting than discovered in week six.

Programme position beats headline growth

Most of the value in European aerospace supply chains is set by programme position rather than by revenue trajectory. A tier-two supplier on a long-cycle programme carries a different risk profile from one with identical revenue spread across short contracts. Capital partners with sector history price that distinction immediately. Generalists usually cannot, and the raise takes roughly twice as long.

The money is there. The work is making it legible to people who are still building the vocabulary.