There is a chicken-and-egg problem here. VCs would presumably love defence contracts because government money is where it is at if you want to get wealthy without risking much.
However war is terrible for business. The reason governments handle defence is because capitalist free markets do not typically allocate much to weapons spending and would never attempt to fund a standing military like what the US government does. So I'd suggest that the root of the demand is coming from the political class and the VCs are responding to that.
It’s not if it’s somewhere far away and you’re only concerned with selling weapons. The Great Disarmament of the European states of 2022-2025(?) will secure contracts for the American industry for decades to come.
Selling weapons far away is less use to a capitalist than improving the society around them. Weapons someone gives you resources, so that is nice, but if you build something enduring for the same amount you get positive externalities as well from a rich society.
$1,000,000 in weapon sales is less useful for a business owner than $1,000,000 in building out, say, a good plumbing system. In the first case they get the million, but in the second case they also don't have to put up with as much disease in their local community. So the basic incentives here is not to put money into weapons unless demand is already there.
War is also excellent for business if it disrupts your competitors, and especially in liquid commodities where any shortage immediately bumps prices.
For the major oil exporters any conflict happening in countries involved in oil production or transportation is a benefit, as it greatly bumps their profits at the expense of the oil consuming countries. Arguably some of the conflicts in places like Syria or Libya have been worse than they 'should' have been simply because there's a large financial motivation to send money and weapons to simply stir up trouble so that the global oil price hikes upwards; a major oil producer doesn't even prefer one side of a conflict, it can simply send some weapons to everyone involved and profit because the country and their oil production gets disrupted.
For the major grain exporters, a war happening in Ukrainian wheat fields is a big boon as it raises global grain prices. There IMHO the other interests are even larger, so this is not the decisive factor, but it does add up to many billions worth of incentives that likely are taken into account.
Now on the other hand, disrupting global trade is pretty universally bad for business, so if somebody (e.g. Houthis) attempt that, then we can expect everyone powerful treating them as 'hostis humani generis' i.e. enemy of all mankind, as piracy has been addressed since Roman times.
However war is terrible for business. The reason governments handle defence is because capitalist free markets do not typically allocate much to weapons spending and would never attempt to fund a standing military like what the US government does. So I'd suggest that the root of the demand is coming from the political class and the VCs are responding to that.