When Motor Oil, through Ireon Ventures, and EOS Capital Partners invested roughly €80 million in Christian Hadjiminas’s EFA Group in late 2025, the deal looked like a straightforward bet on Greece’s expanding defense industry.
Nine months later, the investment thesis is coming into sharper focus. At its center is SCYTALYS, an EFA Group subsidiary specializing in military command-and-control systems. The company is expected to work with Israel’s Rafael on software for the central Command & Control, or C2, platform of “Achilles Shield,” Greece’s planned multilayered air-defense architecture.
If finalized, the role could transform a relatively small Greek defense company. SCYTALYS reported revenue of €11.68 million and profit of €1.81 million in 2025. Market estimates suggest work related to Achilles Shield could eventually generate around €75 million in business for the company.
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The opportunity reflects a broader change in defense economics. Modern air defense depends not only on missiles and radars but on the software connecting them. C2 platforms collect information from sensors, create a common operational picture, prioritize threats and coordinate the weapons used to intercept them.
Greece isn’t expected to receive the proprietary source code of Israeli missiles and weapons systems. Instead, Greek companies are expected to receive technological support and know-how to develop dedicated Greek software for the central C2 platform.
Crucially, that code and subsequent modifications are expected to remain under Greek control, giving Athens greater ability to integrate new weapons and sensors over time.
That wouldn’t amount to full technological independence. Foreign manufacturers could retain control over interfaces, cryptographic keys, proprietary software libraries and certification. But it would allow Greece to capture more of the technological value from defense spending that has historically flowed abroad. The bet on SCYTALYS doesn’t stand alone. The same investors are pursuing a similar strategy through Nova ICT, suggesting a broader push into the digital infrastructure underpinning Greece’s defense and security systems.
Motor Oil’s Ireon Technologies holds a majority stake in Nova ICT, while the Latsco Family Office and EOS Capital Partners recently acquired a combined 30%. The deal brings together interests associated with the Vardinoyannis and Latsis families and investor Apostolos Tamvakakis in a second company positioned to benefit from Greece’s growing investment in defense technology.
Nova ICT is the contractor for THORAX, a roughly €60 million Greek program to develop a C4ISR platform - Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance. The system is designed to combine information from multiple sensors and government agencies into a common operational picture, incorporating data from the armed forces, police, Coast Guard and Civil Protection authorities, with artificial intelligence helping process the information. Taken together, the investments reveal a broader wager.
Greece is embarking on a major defense modernization while seeking to keep a larger share of the spending at home. For domestic companies, competing with global manufacturers of fighter jets, frigates or advanced missiles is difficult. Software, communications, cybersecurity and command-and-control systems offer a more attainable route into the higher-value parts of the defense supply chain.
They can also generate recurring revenue. Unlike a missile or radar delivered once, digital platforms require years of maintenance, upgrades and integration as new weapons and sensors are added.
That helps explain why some of Greece’s deepest pools of private capital are converging on companies such as SCYTALYS and Nova ICT.
