StrictlyVC Download: Why Eric Slesinger, a former CIA officer, is now funding European defense tech

Equity

TechCrunch

Founders, Silicon Valley, Finance, Ipo, Vc, Technology, Business News, Startups, Business, Venture Capital, News, Stock Market, Entrepreneurship, Techcrunch

4.2 • 365 Ratings

🗓️ 7 May 2025

⏱️ 29 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Today, we're bringing you an episode of our sister podcast, StrictlyVC Download. StrictlyVC's Alex Gove caught up with Eric Slesinger from 201 Ventures, a venture capital firm focused on seed-stage defense tech startups in Europe. They discuss Eric's journey from CIA to investor and how he recognized the untapped potential in European defense tech while others were dismissive, and how he's working to overcome the cultural taboo that once made defense investments "bad manners" in European VC circles. Equity will be back on Friday with our weekly news roundup, so stay tuned! Equity is TechCrunch’s flagship podcast, produced by Theresa Loconsolo, and posts every Wednesday and Friday. Subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. You also can follow Equity on X and Threads, at @EquityPod. For the full episode transcript, for those who prefer reading over listening, check out our full archive of episodes here. Credits: Equity is produced by Theresa Loconsolo with editing by Kell. We’d also like to thank TechCrunch’s audience development team. Thank you so much for listening, and we'll talk to you next time. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Hi, I'm Connie Loisus. And this is Alex Gove. And this is Strictly VC Download.
0:10.2	Eric, it's great to meet you. So happy you can join us from Madrid.
0:18.6	Happy to be here, Alex. I'm looking forward to the conversation today.
0:21.1	For our listeners, Eric is the founder of 201 Ventures, which invests in Seed Stage Defense Tech
0:27.1	startups focusing on Europe. He's a former officer at the CIA and has a BS and MS in mechanical
0:33.8	engineering from Stanford and an NBA from Harvard Business School. He worked briefly at
0:38.9	Incutel, the CIA's venture arm, and Mundi Ventures before starting 201. Eric, I first learned about you
0:45.5	from an excellent profile in the New York Times. You were an officer at the CIA for five and a half
0:51.0	years. From what I understand, you were like Q in the James Bond movies,
0:55.2	developing gadgets and software for agents in the field. What made you take a step back from that
1:00.0	and turned to VC? It was the best first job ever. The way I described it, and I described it
1:06.6	this way in the article, which, by the way, it was for someone who professionally avoided the media for so many years of my life at the CIA, was a really fun way to come out with the fund
1:15.5	and launch 201 ventures. And just as I described it, it was like walking into a Santa's workshop.
1:20.2	I left because I noticed that the private sector was increasingly playing a role in this competition
1:26.1	that I previously had understood, really,
1:28.1	to just be a government-to-government competition. But what became obvious more so every day
1:33.0	was that the private sector was playing such a big role here. I know this sounds so obvious to
1:37.0	most of the audience, the podcast who works most in the private sector, I'm assuming. But when you're,
1:41.2	where I was in government at a place that really is like super mission focused
1:45.1	and sometimes can be somewhat insular compared to private sector peers. This was an awakening
1:50.5	moment for me. And so that was when I popped my head up and decided that I should really go
1:54.4	figure this out because I had gone straight from being an engineer in school into the public
	...

Transcript will be available on the free plan in 21 days. Upgrade to see the full transcript now.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from TechCrunch, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of TechCrunch and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.