Edition #1 | Friday
The Rundown
Nine stories. Five countries. A week that compressed several years' worth of Nordic tech themes into five days. Here is what happened:
- Lyten closed the Northvolt Sweden acquisition. $5B in battery assets, 600 planned hires, and a new industrial hub co-locating batteries with AI data centers in Skelleftea.
- Equinix and CPP Investments bought atNorth for $4 billion. The largest Nordic data center deal ever. Partners Group exits with a 4x return in four years.
- Finland's IQM goes public at $1.8B. First European quantum company to list on a US exchange. $450M cash post-transaction.
- Sweden's AI strategy drew fire from four top founders. They called the $46M annual budget "a Series A, not a national strategy."
- Hybrid Greentech raised EUR15M for virtual power plant expansion across Europe.
- Cernel closed EUR4M in four weeks for its agentic commerce platform in Copenhagen.
- Founders House opened in Helsinki. Stockholm's curated startup community expands to Finland.
- Frankenburg raised EUR30M to mass-produce counter-drone missiles in Estonia.
- Strawberry launched its AI browser to the public, challenging Chrome from Stockholm.
The throughline: infrastructure. Whether it is battery factories, data centers, quantum hardware, or missile production lines, the capital is flowing toward physical things that take years to build and decades to depreciate. That is a very Nordic way to invest.
Let's get into it.
Capital Moves
Hybrid Greentech Raises EUR15M for European Grid Flexibility
Danish virtual power plant provider Hybrid Greentech raised EUR15 million from Nordic Alpha Partners. The platform connects owners of solar, wind, and battery storage assets into a unified system that trades on European energy exchanges. Grid flexibility has attracted roughly EUR77 million in recent funding across the segment. Denmark generates over 50% of its electricity from wind, making it a natural home base for this technology. Read more →
Cernel Closes EUR4M Seed in Four Weeks
Copenhagen-based AI startup Cernel raised EUR4 million in a seed round led by Seed Capital. The company builds infrastructure for "agentic commerce" -- AI-driven product data management for e-commerce brands in fashion, beauty, and sporting goods. Four weeks from first pitch to close. When Seed Capital moves that fast, it usually means the team and timing are both right. Read more →
Frankenburg Secures EUR30M for Counter-Drone Missiles
Tallinn-based Frankenburg raised a EUR30 million Series A led by Plural to mass-produce affordable counter-drone missiles. The target: 100 missiles per day per factory, at a fraction of current interceptor costs. Europe's air defence math is broken -- cheap drones versus expensive missiles -- and Frankenburg is building the manufacturing to fix it. Part of a broader Nordic and Baltic defence tech funding surge. Read more →
Deals & Exits
Lyten Completes Northvolt Sweden Acquisition
The biggest story of the week. US-based Lyten completed its acquisition of Northvolt's Swedish assets: 16 GWh of battery manufacturing capacity at Northvolt Ett in Skelleftea, plus Europe's largest battery R&D center at Northvolt Labs in Vasteras. Book value: nearly $5 billion. Lyten plans to hire 600+ people and restart production, with commercial cells expected in H2 2026. The twist: EdgeConneX (EQT portfolio) will build a data center campus on the site, co-locating AI compute with battery manufacturing. Read more →
Equinix and CPP Buy atNorth for $4 Billion
Nordic data center operator atNorth sold to Equinix (40%) and Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (60%, contributing $1.6B directly). Enterprise value: $4 billion. Partners Group, which bought atNorth for roughly $1 billion in 2022, walks away with a 4x return. atNorth operates seven data centers across Iceland, Sweden, and Finland, with 1 GW of expansion capacity in the pipeline. The deal makes Equinix the dominant colocation provider in the Nordics. Read more →
IQM Goes Public via $1.8B SPAC
Finnish quantum computing company IQM will merge with Real Asset Acquisition Corp to list on a US exchange at a $1.8 billion valuation. It becomes the first publicly traded European quantum company. IQM reported $35 million in 2025 revenue and $100 million+ in bookings. Post-deal cash exceeds $450 million. The SPAC route is faster than a traditional IPO, but the 2021 SPAC hangover means the stock will face extra scrutiny from day one. Read more →
Building & Shipping
Founders House Opens in Helsinki
Stockholm's curated "founder factory" has expanded to Finland. Founders House Helsinki occupies 600+ sqm in the Sahkotalo building and will host up to 15 founding teams. First residents include founders with backgrounds from Oura, Supercell, ICEYE, and BCG. Finland produced 15 unicorns and $1.5B in VC funding in 2025, but Helsinki's startup community has been more distributed than Stockholm's. This is an attempt to change that. Read more →
Strawberry Launches AI Browser to the Public
Stockholm-based Strawberry opened its "self-driving browser" to general availability. The product uses AI agents to navigate the web on your behalf -- searching, comparing, filling forms, extracting data across multiple sites simultaneously. Founded by Arian Hanifi, Charles Maddock, and Sebastian Thunman, Strawberry previously raised EUR5.1 million. The browser is built on Google's open-source engine with proprietary agent orchestration. Google, OpenAI, and Perplexity all have competing approaches. Read more →
The Policy Wire
Sweden's $46M AI Budget Draws Founder Backlash
Joel Hellermark (Sana Labs), Johannes Schildt (Kry), Anton Osika (Lovable), and Fredrik Hjelm (Voi) published an open letter calling Sweden's annual AI strategy allocation "a Series A, not a national strategy." They support the direction -- apply AI rather than building foundation models -- but say $46 million per year is inadequate for a country competing for global AI talent. The strategy's key mechanism, the AI Workshop, will not be operational until 2030. France, by comparison, has committed over $2 billion. The founders argue the brain drain to San Francisco is accelerating and the governance model of 340 agencies, 21 regions, and 290 municipalities is a bottleneck. Read more →
Radar
Watch: Lyten's rehiring program. With 600+ positions opening in Skelleftea and Vasteras, the pace of hiring will signal how quickly the Northvolt restart is moving. Look for announcements by late March.
Watch: IQM's stock debut. The SPAC merger needs to close, but once IQM starts trading, its share price will become the benchmark for European quantum valuations. Every other European quantum company's fundraising will reference it.
Watch: Nordic defence budgets. Sweden's 2026 defence budget increase is expected to accelerate procurement from domestic and regional suppliers. Combined with Finland's NATO membership and Estonia's defence tech push, the Nordic-Baltic corridor is becoming Europe's most active defence innovation zone. Expect more Frankenburg-style rounds before summer.
That's NordicTech #1. We publish Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. See you next week.