Most European VC maps still centre on London, Berlin, and Paris. Joachim Enegaard thinks this map is about five years out of date. As an investor at Rockaway Ventures, he deploys capital across Central and Eastern Europe, where the technical talent is deep and the sectors that matter most to European sovereignty are being built.
The Thesis
Rockaway Ventures invests in defence and dual-use technologies, industrial AI, and energy — sectors where Europe has declared strategic priority and where the gap between priority and deployed capital creates the opportunity.
Why CEE
The CEE ecosystem produces systems engineers, cryptographers, and industrial automation specialists — technical founders building in sectors where defensibility is structural. Prague sits at the centre of a talent pool from Tallinn to Sofia, with cost structures that give founders a runway advantage.
Why Vienna
The Human × AI Conference sits at the geographic and thematic intersection of Enegaard's thesis. His answer to where European deep tech will be built — informed by a portfolio spanning defence, industrial AI, and energy across CEE — may surprise attendees whose mental map still centres on Western capitals.
