Gundbert Scherf

Gundbert Scherf is co-Founder and co-CEO of Helsing, Europe's largest AI defence technology company. Founded in 2021 with Niklas Köhler and Torsten Reil, Helsing's mission is to build AI that protects our democracies.

Helsing operates across all defence domains and multiple geographies, focused on providing AI-enabled autonomous systems for sovereign defence. Its products include loitering munition systems, unmanned combat aerial vehicles, underwater gliders, and advanced software platforms. Helsing has secured government programmes of records across the European Union and United Kingdom. Its technology is deployed operationally in Ukraine and with NATO militaries.

Before founding Helsing, Gundbert spent the best part of his career on the problem of modernising democratic defence capabilities both in industry, as a Partner at McKinsey & Company, and in government as a special advisor in the German Federal Ministry of Defence. A committed European, he holds degrees from the University of Cambridge, the Free University of Berlin, and Sciences Po Paris.