THE FUNDING MAP / BY TYPE AND ORIGIN
Public funding from outside the Nordics for hardtech
7 public funders from outside the Nordics with documented hardtech investments. State and EU instruments: grants, soft loans and co-investment. Non-dilutive money that funds the stretch from lab to first product. Deadlines and program details are on the grants pages.
EIC Accelerator is the European Commission's flagship deep-tech funding instrument under Horizon Europe, offering blended grants (up to €2.5M) and equity investments (typically €0.5M-€10M, up to €30M under STEP Scale-Up) via the EIC Fund to startups and SMEs across the EU and associated countries, including a consistent stream of Nordic recipients (Sweden and Finland regularly rank among the top countries by number of winners each cut-off, with Denmark and Norway also represented in most rounds).
Backed IQM Finland
EUDIS BAMM (Business Accelerator) is a public, non-dilutive funding and coaching instrument of the EU Defence Innovation Scheme, run by the European Commission's Directorate-General for Defence Industry and Space together with a Starburst-led consortium. It selects cohorts of 20 European (EU + Norway) defence-tech start-ups and scale-ups twice a year, giving each a €120,000 seed-financing voucher plus coaching, bootcamps and investor/end-user matchmaking.
Backed 3YOURMIND, Autoagri, Defensphere (Vegvisir), Edge Aerospace, Elwave, Fernride
Eurostars is a public EU/Eureka-network funding instrument (co-funded via Horizon Europe and national bodies like Vinnova, Innovation Fund Denmark and the Research Council of Norway) that provides non-dilutive grants to SME-led, cross-border collaborative R&D projects, funding roughly 20-30 Swedish companies alone every year plus counterparts across Norway, Denmark, Finland and Iceland.
Backed Epishine, BabySensor AS, Sensohive ApS, Evosep Aps, I-CONIC Vision AB
Horizon Europe is the EU's flagship research and innovation funding programme (2021-2027, ~€93.5B budget), whose EIC Accelerator and EIC Fund provide blended grant/equity financing to deep-tech and hardtech startups and SMEs across the EU and associated countries, including recurring Nordic recipients (e.g., Swedish and Danish EIC Accelerator winners) and EIC info-day activity in the Nordics (e.g. Copenhagen). Because it funds via competitive, rolling calls with only partial per-round public disclosure, no single exhaustive portfolio list exists; qualifies as a Public Funding instrument rather than a conventional VC.
InnoEnergy is the EU-backed clean tech investor founded in 2010 by the European Institute of Innovation and Technology, headquartered in Eindhoven with a Swedish entity, KIC IE AB, in Stockholm. It holds equity stakes in 160+ active companies and has backed Nordic hardtech names including Minesto, CorPower Ocean and Northvolt, alongside battery, hydrogen and materials plays across Europe.
Backed Minesto, Hardt Hyperloop, Verkor, CorPower Ocean, GravitHy, Skeleton Technologies
NATO’s accelerator supporting dual-use deep tech startups across defense and civilian applications.
Nefco, the Nordic Green Bank, is a Nordic-owned international finance institution founded in 1990 by the five Nordic governments and headquartered in Helsinki. It provides loan financing, EIF-backed guarantees and Nopef feasibility funding to Nordic SMEs scaling green, climate and environmental solutions internationally, alongside financing for municipal and public projects in Eastern Europe and beyond.
Backed Bawat, MASH Makes, SolarLab, Racell, Aeromon, Coolbrook
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