Founded by Leslie Hitchcock, a former Director at TechCrunch, and Dr Tobias Stone, a tech entrepreneur, Resilience Media’s mission is to shape the narrative and develop the ecosystem around the rapidly emerging defence tech sector.  A highly collaborative media startup, Resilience Media is focused on supporting the tech sector’s role in the defence of our democracies at a time when the sector is expanding rapidly, with VC investment rising to $5.2 billion in 2024.  It does this with its dedicated newsletters and insights from key policy makers, founders, and investors, and by convening people at its agenda-setting conferences.

The editorial team

Resilience Media has recruited an exceptional writing team, with long-standing knowledge and commitment to championing tech ecosystems. The Company has also put in place a governance structure designed to protect editorial integrity. The investors have agreed to have no influence over editorial decisions, a principle enshrined in the company’s Articles. A separate Editorial Board will oversee editorial content relating both to the publication and the event stages.

Key editorial hires include:

• Ingrid Lunden, former International Managing Editor at TechCrunch, joins as Managing Editor
• John Biggs, former New York Times reporter and TechCrunch editor, Natasha Lomas, former correspondent at TechCrunch, and Jonathan Shieber, former senior editor at TechCrunch, join as Editors-at-Large

The writing team also expands to cover more geographies:

• Julia Gifford, covering the Baltics; Anna Heim covering Central and Western Europe; and Oleksandr Ihnatenko covering Ukraine
• Matt Burns, former Managing Editor at TechCrunch, will run the Launch at Resilience Conference startup showcase

Resilience Conference 2025: shaping the future of defence

Following its successful inaugural London conference in September 2024, Resilience Conference 2025 will again feature leaders from NATO, AUKUS, EU, and Ukraine. Founders, investors, military, and government customers will cover defence tech themes including the future battlefield, autonomy, hypersonics, kinetics, warfare at sea and in space, disinformation, manufacturing, resilient supply chains, and more.

Confirmed speakers include Lorenz Meier (Auterion), Ophelia Brown (Blossom Capital), Ragnar Sass (Darkstar), Kusti Salm (Frankenburg Technologies), Robin Dechant (General Catalyst), Klaus Hommels (Lakestar, NIF, MSC), John Ridge (NIF), Cameron McCord (Nominal), Sten Tamkivi (Plural), Uwe Horstmann (Project A), Rob Harper (Rowden), Oluseun Taiwo (Solideon).

For attendees there will be unparalleled networking, a mix of panels, fireside chats, breakout sessions, VIP briefings, and the "Launch" startup showcase. Reflecting the seniority and security status of attending military and intelligence leaders, some sessions will be unrecorded and off the record providing unique content for those in the room.

This year, Resilience Media is launching London Defence Tech Week, a curated week of back-to-back events around Resilience Conference, that demonstrates the importance the team attach to collaboration in this important sector. The week will feature the European Defence Tech hackathon, Resilience Conference, and Future Forces Demo Day, along with a range of other fringe events from partners and supporters.

"Ukraine has shown that rapidly iterated and innovative technology will be fundamental in this new era of conflict and startups and investors have a key role to play in defence and national security. We founded Resilience Conference and Media to provide the platform for investors, founders, governments, and military to connect, collaborate, and innovate," said Dr Tobias Stone, Co-Founder of Resilience Media.

Leslie Hitchcock, Co-Founder of Resilience Media, added: "The journalistic experience we’re bringing into Resilience Media correlates directly to the importance of our mission to convene the defence tech startup ecosystem with customers, investors and partners. Resilience Conference will be an agenda-setting event from our security-first team taking the dialogue on defence tech and resilience to the next level. We can’t wait to welcome founders, investors, governments and security leaders to London for this important conversation.”

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