Key Takeaways
- • Valarian, a London-based sovereign infrastructure startup, raised $50 million in Series A funding led by New Enterprise Associates (NEA), bringing total capital raised to $70 million and marking NEA's first defence and dual-use investment in Europe.
- • The round signals institutional conviction in the sovereign AI infrastructure market as Western governments accelerate spending on AI systems they control domestically; European defence spending reached €392 billion in 2025.
- • Valarian's core product, ACRA, operates as a governance control layer beneath critical applications including encrypted communications, secure data transfer, and local AI deployment, enforcing workload-level security at the infrastructure layer.
- • NEA's $35 billion asset base and track record backing Salesforce, Cloudflare, and Databricks validates the emerging market for governance infrastructure in high-consequence government and enterprise environments.
- • Co-founders Max Buchan (British founder, Forbes Under 30 Europe alumnus with international finance background) and Josh McLaughlin (former US Army Special Forces officer, 12-year Palantir veteran) position the company to address structural gaps in AI infrastructure governance for sovereign operations.
Summary
Valarian, a London-based infrastructure software company, announced $50 million in Series A funding led by New Enterprise Associates (NEA), a prominent US venture capital firm managing $35 billion in assets. The round brings the company's total funding to $70 million and represents a strategic inflection point: NEA's first defence and dual-use technology investment in Europe, signalling heightened institutional appetite for sovereignty-focused AI infrastructure solutions.
The funding environment reflects macroeconomic realities shaping government procurement priorities. European defence spending reached €392 billion in 2025, and Western governments are accelerating investment in AI infrastructure they can control domestically rather than relying on third-party cloud providers or foreign technology stacks. This creates a defensible market for companies solving the governance gap between high-consequence operations and the underlying infrastructure they depend on.
Valarian's founding team brings credibility in both geopolitics and enterprise software. Max Buchan, a British founder and Forbes Under 30 Europe alumnus with a background in international finance, co-founded the company with Josh McLaughlin, a former US Army Special Forces officer who spent 12 years at Palantir leading operations in high-risk environments. The company's core platform, ACRA, functions as a control layer sitting beneath critical applications—encrypted communications, secure data transfer, and local AI deployment—enforcing workload-level governance directly at the infrastructure layer itself.
The timing reflects an unresolved structural problem in current infrastructure architecture. When senior US government officials conducted sensitive operations over Signal, a consumer messaging application, the incident exposed not merely operational security failures but a fundamental absence of governance controls between high-consequence decision-making and the infrastructure supporting it. Valarian positions ACRA as the technical remediation for organisations requiring non-negotiable sovereignty over AI and critical workloads.
NEA's involvement carries weight within venture capital circles; the firm's historical backs include Salesforce, Cloudflare, and Databricks, companies that defined enterprise software categories. This investment suggests that sovereign infrastructure governance is being treated as a category-defining opportunity rather than a niche defence procurement segment.
The funding environment reflects macroeconomic realities shaping government procurement priorities. European defence spending reached €392 billion in 2025, and Western governments are accelerating investment in AI infrastructure they can control domestically rather than relying on third-party cloud providers or foreign technology stacks. This creates a defensible market for companies solving the governance gap between high-consequence operations and the underlying infrastructure they depend on.
Valarian's founding team brings credibility in both geopolitics and enterprise software. Max Buchan, a British founder and Forbes Under 30 Europe alumnus with a background in international finance, co-founded the company with Josh McLaughlin, a former US Army Special Forces officer who spent 12 years at Palantir leading operations in high-risk environments. The company's core platform, ACRA, functions as a control layer sitting beneath critical applications—encrypted communications, secure data transfer, and local AI deployment—enforcing workload-level governance directly at the infrastructure layer itself.
The timing reflects an unresolved structural problem in current infrastructure architecture. When senior US government officials conducted sensitive operations over Signal, a consumer messaging application, the incident exposed not merely operational security failures but a fundamental absence of governance controls between high-consequence decision-making and the infrastructure supporting it. Valarian positions ACRA as the technical remediation for organisations requiring non-negotiable sovereignty over AI and critical workloads.
NEA's involvement carries weight within venture capital circles; the firm's historical backs include Salesforce, Cloudflare, and Databricks, companies that defined enterprise software categories. This investment suggests that sovereign infrastructure governance is being treated as a category-defining opportunity rather than a niche defence procurement segment.
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