Investors from outside the Nordics backing Nordic 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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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