Venture capital firms from outside the Nordics backing hardtech

Global early-stage venture capital firm with a dedicated always-on residency model in the Nordics, investing from day zero through Series C.

Backed Evyon (battery storage from repurposed EV batteries)

Early-stage venture capital firm investing in B2B tech startups, mainly in SaaS, enterprise software, and cybersecurity.

Energetik Ventures is a London-based early-stage venture capital fund backing founders building the next generation of energy technologies, with a portfolio spanning computing hardware, battery materials, storage systems, vertical farming and grid/EV software across Europe.

Backed Vaire Computing, Intelligent Growth Solutions, Puraffinity, Lunar Energy, Moixa, Echion Technologies

Expansion Ventures is a pan-European VC firm (Paris and Stockholm) launched in 2022, targeting a €300M fund dedicated to Aerospace & Defence startups from pre-seed to Series B, with a Stockholm-based General Partner (Ulf Palmnäs) giving it genuine Nordic roots alongside its French base.

Backed Aldoria, Alta Ares, Arkadia, Ascendance Flight Technologies, Atmos, Dcubed

imec.xpand is a Belgium-based (Leuven, with an Amsterdam office) venture capital fund, founded in 2017 as a spin-out of imec, that invests globally in early-stage semiconductor, nanotechnology and deep-tech hardware startups. It has no dedicated Nordic office, but invests across Europe and beyond and closed a EUR 300M second fund in 2024 to keep backing chip, photonics, quantum and hardware-enabled life-sciences ventures.

Backed Diraq, NEURA Robotics, Invisix, Density AI, Mojo Vision, Aerospacelab

Inflection is an early-stage venture fund investing 500K to 2M dollars at idea, pre-seed and seed stage in engineering moonshots across computation, cryptography, physical AI, robotics, manufacturing, energy, resilience and aerospace, with a geographic preference for Europe. It has led Nordic rounds including the 2025 pre-seed extension for Stockholm-based drone defence startup Nordic Air Defence and backed Malmö robotics company Levtek.

Backed Levtek, Stealth, Ark, Nordic Air Defence, Deep Earth, Lodestar

Partners in Clime is a Weinstadt, Germany based climate tech investor founded in 2022, backing pre-seed and seed hardtech and greentech founders across the DACH region with capital and founder-to-founder mentoring. It runs an angel syndicate model and co-invests with firms like b2venture, Point Nine, 468 Capital and Climate Founders.

Backed Hula Earth, Cotierra, Senara, Nautica Technologies, New Path Bio, Arkeon

Plug and Play Gothenburg is the Nordic mobility hub of the global Plug and Play Tech Center network, based at The Yard in Lindholmen Science Park with Volvo Cars as founding partner. It runs corporate innovation and accelerator programs connecting startups with mobility and automotive corporates, but no Gothenburg-specific portfolio company list is publicly documented.

Prota Ventures is a venture-building and early-stage investment firm headquartered in Chicago, founded in 2016, that invests financial and non-financial capital in technology startups from concept to launch. No Nordic office, partner, or portfolio company has been identified, so its inclusion on a Nordic map is questionable.

Backed Bird Buddy, CarlsMed, Glidance

Berlin-based venture capital firm that runs North Karelia Growth Fund (and now Fund II) through its Redstone Nordics arm, backing early-stage deeptech and hardtech companies in the Joensuu region of Finland.

Backed Chipmetrics, SeeTrue Technologies

Spark Capital is a US venture capital firm headquartered in Boston, San Francisco and New York, founded in 2005. It invests across stages from seed to growth in consumer, enterprise, fintech, AI and frontier tech, with holdings spanning software platforms as well as hardware, robotics and aerospace companies.

Backed Oculus, Cruise, Sesame, CTRL-labs, MatX, Lightmatter

Tallinn-based early-stage investor and company builder backing bold tech founders in the Baltics and Nordics.

Backed Starship, Coalescent, Lightcode