Skip the gifts.
Here’s the list.
December is when Nordic hardtech hits maximum contrast. Cities light up, factories wind down, inboxes overflow and lead times stretch like tinsel across a shipping container. It’s when founders push the last builds out the door while half the world goes offline.
So this week, we’re unwrapping what Nordic hardtech is really asking for this season. Not gadgets, sweaters or gift cards, but the things that make or break physical innovation. The stuff you can’t wrap, but every founder needs.
Nordic Hardtech Partners 🤝
- Lightbringer: AI-powered patent service helping tech companies protect their edge fast, with in-house legal expertise. Book an intro.
- Recuro: Growth partner for hardtech and deeptech. Scale with profit.
- SISP (Swedish Incubators & Science Parks): The network for 60+ incubators and science parks in Sweden. Find yours here.
- The Yard: Gothenburg’s hub for co-working, community, and serious hardware. Explore their memberships.
Nordic Hardtech Christmas
This Week: What Founders May Actually Want.
The Wishlist No One Wraps
Forget the sweaters. If you’ve spent 2025 fighting component shortages, impossible lead times and a geopolitical landscape that updates faster than your firmware, the wishlist looks nothing like a normal Christmas list. Nordic hardtech founders don’t want gadgets — they want conditions that let them build.
1. A BOM that stays the same for more than 72 hours
Stability has become a luxury good. Between surprise EOL notices, evaporating suppliers and last-minute redesigns, 2025 made clear that “predictable sourcing” is basically a superpower. If someone could gift a stable supply chain, no founder would ask for anything else.
2. Pilot customers who reply before Q2
Hardware innovation doesn’t stall because of physics; it stalls because decision cycles stretch into next summer. A realistic Christmas wish? Enterprise partners who can say “yes,” “no,” or even “maybe,” within the same fiscal year.
3. A single week without a new export control update
From semiconductors to magnets to batteries, every new geopolitical ripple changes a project plan somewhere in the Nordics. A Christmas miracle would be one quiet week in which no new regulation appears and no essential material becomes politically radioactive.
Speaking of geopolitics: If you missed it, Weekly #32 breaks down exactly how Asian supply shifts and the Taiwan Strait ripple into Nordic hardware.
Jennifer Bark
4. Customs officers who understand prototypes
Few things create more seasonal suspense than tracking a prototype stuck in limbo at the border. A dream scenario: inspectors who grasp that a hand-soldered board at 02:14 is not, in fact, a retail product and shouldn’t require the same paperwork as one.
5. Funding cycles that follow physics, not calendars
Hardware doesn’t care about quarter boundaries. Tooling takes time, testing takes time, safety certifications take more time. What founders really want isn’t “holiday optimism,” it’s investors who understand that physical timelines are real timelines — and that rushing them always costs more later.
On the topic of long-term timelines: Our podcast episode with Transparent explores why durable hardware and patient investors go hand in hand.
6. More batteries, more bandwidth, more breathing room
The three currencies of 2025: storage capacity, factory hours and cognitive space. More of any of them would be the perfect gift. More of all three would feel like divine intervention.
7. A little less noise, a little more focus
Between EU industrial packages, reshoring announcements, digital twin hype, AI-for-everything and fifteen new “Europe’s comeback” reports, 2025 delivered enough narrative turbulence for a decade. What founders want for Christmas is simple: fewer distractions, more signal.
8. A January that doesn’t start at full throttle on day one
Many teams will ship on the 23rd and reboot on the 2nd. A gentler ramp would be a welcome gift — even for an ecosystem that loves the grind.
In the end, the hardtech Christmas list is surprisingly modest. It’s not about breakthroughs or moonshots. It’s about the unglamorous but essential pieces that allow founders to build real things in a world that rarely cooperates.
And maybe that’s the point: the best gifts in hardtech aren’t wrapped. They’re systemic.
December makes those conditions painfully clear. Logistics tighten, suppliers disappear into holiday mode and every “final shipment before the break” becomes a small thriller. Which only underlines how much of hardtech rests on the things you never see.
Lately ⏮️
Selected news from the hardtech ecosystem
- Finnish startups cross €1.5B in 2025, driven by major rounds from Oura and IQM and steady early-stage support. FVCA’s new data points to rare momentum across health, quantum and industrial tech.
- TechSverige’s new report shows Sweden’s tech sector still growing despite a weak economy, with rising exports, strong turnover and a larger share of GDP.
- Former Swedish foreign minister Tobias Billström joins counter-drone startup Nordic Air Defence in a strategic role working with governments and defence partners.
- Transparent hits 200% funding on Kickstarter with its new modular Aroma Diffuser, built from recycled aluminum and borosilicate glass.
- TechFundingNews highlights 10+ European deeptech disruptors for 2025, with Nordic companies like Neko Health and Einride among the standouts. A snapshot of where Europe’s most ambitious hardtech is heading next.
Up next ⏭️
What's brewing in the community?
- Tomorrow, December 5, 09:00–10:30: AI Sweden hosts an online session on AI assistants and agent workflows – a useful lens for hardtech teams as tooling shifts from manual research to autonomous design and decision support.
- Digital Product Passes are moving closer to implementation, and electronics will be among the first sectors affected. Svensk Elektronik and Acte/EG walk through what companies need to prepare for. December 11th at 10:0, online.
- CES, the world’s largest tech and hardware showcase, approaches with several Nordic companies already on the exhibitor lists. Explore the lineup.
- Ignite Sweden hosts a welcome session for startups on December 11 at 10:00, covering how to navigate their corporate matching process. A useful touchpoint for hardtech teams preparing for pilots.
Nordic Hardtech Funding List
See who’s raising, scaling and building across the Nordics.
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