Nordic AI startups raised $12.19B across 478 funding rounds between January 2023 and June 2026, and one Stockholm company accounts for more than a quarter of it. Stegra, the green-steel producer formerly called H2 Green Steel, pulled in $3.30B across two raises. Take those out and the region’s remaining 476 rounds total $8.89B.
Sweden holds 62.7% of the money, Stockholm hosts 136 of the 478 rounds, and the median Nordic round is $6.26M. The first six months of 2026 brought in $3.97B, more than any full year before it.
On this page
- Nordic AI Funding Reached $12.19B Across 478 Rounds
- Stegra Alone Holds 27.1% of Nordic AI Capital
- Stockholm, Copenhagen, and Helsinki Take 62.8% of Nordic Rounds
- Energy and Health Outweigh Software in the Nordic Vertical Mix
- The 10 Largest Nordic Rounds, 2023 to H1 2026
- H1 2026 Beat Every Full Year Before It
- FAQ: Nordic AI Startup Ecosystem
- Methodology
Nordic AI Funding Reached $12.19B Across 478 Rounds
Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Norway, and Iceland produced 478 AI-related funding rounds worth $12.19B from January 2023 through June 2026. The median round was $6.26M and the average was $27.65M, a spread that shows how top-heavy the region is.
| Country | Rounds | Total Funding | Share of Funding | Median Round |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sweden | 174 | $7.65B | 62.7% | $7.80M |
| Finland | 120 | $2.21B | 18.2% | $5.69M |
| Denmark | 111 | $1.50B | 12.3% | $5.69M |
| Norway | 63 | $737M | 6.0% | $6.18M |
| Iceland | 10 | $102M | 0.8% | $10.00M |
Source: Bot Memo analysis of 478 Nordic AI rounds, January 2023 to June 2026
Sweden’s lead is real but narrower than the headline suggests. Stegra’s two raises sit entirely inside the Swedish column and carry $3.30B of Sweden’s $7.65B. Strip them and Sweden holds $4.34B against $3.71B for Finland and Denmark combined, a lead rather than a rout.
Round count moves less. Sweden filed 36.4% of Nordic rounds, Finland 25.1%, Denmark 23.2%. On that basis Sweden, Finland, and Denmark read as one market with three front doors.
Stegra Alone Holds 27.1% of Nordic AI Capital
Stegra raised €1.5B in September 2023 under its former name H2 Green Steel, backed by Altor, GIC, Hy24, and Just Climate. It closed a further €1.4B in June 2026, led by a Wallenberg Investments consortium with Temasek, IMAS, Altor, Hy24, Just Climate, and AMF returning. In dollars the two raises come to $1.71B and $1.59B.
Stegra is building a hydrogen-powered steel plant in Boden, northern Sweden, and runs industrial automation and predictive maintenance across it. Our classification records it as an industrial business, not an AI company. Anyone quoting a Nordic AI funding total without naming Stegra is quoting a steel mill.
The 10 largest rounds together account for $5.44B, or 44.6% of everything raised in three and a half years. The other 468 rounds split $6.76B between them.
Stockholm, Copenhagen, and Helsinki Take 62.8% of Nordic Rounds
Three cities carry 300 of the 478 rounds. Stockholm leads on both count and capital, Copenhagen beats Helsinki on volume, and Espoo raises far more than its size suggests because two of Finland’s largest companies sit there.
| City | Country | Rounds | Total Funding |
|---|---|---|---|
| Stockholm | Sweden | 136 | $6.96B |
| Copenhagen | Denmark | 90 | $1.22B |
| Helsinki | Finland | 74 | $868M |
| Oslo | Norway | 44 | $309M |
| Espoo | Finland | 17 | $1.09B |
| Gothenburg | Sweden | 12 | $452M |
| Aarhus | Denmark | 10 | $157M |
| Malmo | Sweden | 9 | $55.4M |
| Reykjavik | Iceland | 9 | $96.3M |
| Tampere | Finland | 9 | $46.3M |
Source: Bot Memo analysis of 478 Nordic AI rounds, January 2023 to June 2026
Seventeen Espoo rounds produced $1.09B, an average of $64.2M against Copenhagen’s $13.5M. ICEYE and IQM account for $965M of that, 88.5% of the city total.
IQM Quantum Computers raised a $320M Series B led by Ten Eleven Ventures in September 2025. ICEYE raised a €150M Series E led by General Catalyst in December 2025 for its radar satellite constellation, from the same municipality.
Oslo runs the other way. Forty-four rounds produced $309M, a $7.0M average, and Norway’s most visible robotics company left. 1X Technologies raised a €91M Series B from Moss, Norway, led by EQT Ventures with Samsung NEXT joining, then moved its headquarters to Palo Alto.
Gothenburg trades scale for focus. Twelve rounds, $452M, and a mobility and aerospace tilt anchored by Heart Aerospace, which raised a $107M Series B in February 2024 for hybrid-electric aircraft before it too moved its headquarters to Los Angeles.
For how these cities stack up globally, see our breakdown of AI startup funding by city.
Energy and Health Outweigh Software in the Nordic Vertical Mix
Energy & Sustainability leads Nordic AI on both round count and capital, and Manufacturing & Industrials sits second on money while ranking fifth on volume.
| Vertical | Rounds | Total Funding |
|---|---|---|
| Energy & Sustainability | 75 | $4.97B |
| Health & Biotech | 64 | $1.30B |
| FinTech | 60 | $707M |
| Developer Tools & AI Infrastructure | 55 | $1.47B |
| Manufacturing & Industrials | 53 | $4.00B |
| Transportation & Mobility | 30 | $1.07B |
Source: Bot Memo analysis of 478 Nordic AI rounds, January 2023 to June 2026. Rounds listed under several verticals count once in each.
Stegra skews the top two rows, since its raises sit in both Energy and Manufacturing. Excluding them, Energy & Sustainability holds $1.67B across 73 rounds and Manufacturing & Industrials holds $692M across 51, which puts Developer Tools & AI Infrastructure at the top of the capital table on $1.47B.
Health & Biotech is the most evenly spread vertical, with companies in all five countries. Neko Health raised a $260M Series B led by Lightspeed Venture Partners in January 2025 for preventive body scans in Stockholm.
Copenhagen carries the Danish side. Adcendo raised a $135M Series B led by TCGX for antibody-drug conjugates, and Orbis Medicines followed a €26M seed with a €90M Series A led by New Enterprise Associates, worth $103M, for oral macrocycle drugs.
FinTech carries the most rounds relative to capital, 60 rounds for $707M, an $11.8M average. Nordic fintech has been raising steadily since Klarna and iZettle trained a generation of operators, but the AI wave has not yet produced a nine-figure fintech round in the region.
For the continental picture, see our list of top European AI startups, and for the legal cluster specifically, our roundup of AI legal tech startups.
The 10 Largest Nordic Rounds, 2023 to H1 2026
Ranked by dollar value after currency conversion, and limited to equity and equity-led rounds. That excludes ICEYE’s €300M revolving credit facility from a bank syndicate in May 2026 and Polestar’s $200M share placement to Geely’s PSD Investment in June 2025, a listed-company financing that does not belong in a venture ranking.
| Company | Raised | Original | Stage | City | Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stegra (then H2 Green Steel) | $1.71B | €1.5B | Series B | Stockholm | Sep 2023 |
| Stegra | $1.59B | €1.4B | Growth | Stockholm | Jun 2026 |
| Legora | $550M | $550M | Series D | Stockholm | Mar 2026 |
| Lovable | $330M | $330M | Series B | Stockholm | Dec 2025 |
| IQM Quantum Computers | $320M | $320M | Series B | Espoo | Sep 2025 |
| Neko Health | $260M | $260M | Series B | Stockholm | Jan 2025 |
| Lovable | $200M | $200M | Series A | Stockholm | Jul 2025 |
| ICEYE | $171M | €150M | Series E | Espoo | Dec 2025 |
| Aira | $171M | €150M | Growth | Stockholm | Aug 2025 |
| Adcendo | $135M | $135M | Series B | Copenhagen | Nov 2024 |
Source: Bot Memo analysis of 478 Nordic AI rounds, January 2023 to June 2026. Euro amounts converted at current rates.
Legora is the fastest riser on the list. The Stockholm legal AI company raised an $80M Series B co-led by ICONIQ and General Catalyst in May 2025, a $550M Series D led by Accel in March 2026, and a €42M extension of that Series D in April 2026 with NVentures and Atlassian among the new names. The $550M round is the largest legal AI raise anywhere in the Nordic dataset.
Lovable appears twice. The vibe-coding platform, renamed from GPT Engineer in late 2024, raised a $200M Series A led by Accel in July 2025, then a $330M Series B led by CapitalG and Menlo Ventures in December 2025 at a $6.6B valuation. Both closed within six months of each other from a Stockholm base.
Aira raised €150M in August 2025 from Altor, Kinnevik, Lingotto, and Temasek to install heat pumps across European homes, which converts to $171M. Einride missed the top 10 with a $100M round in October 2025 for autonomous freight, IonQ joining existing backer EQT Ventures.
H1 2026 Beat Every Full Year Before It
Nordic AI funding fell 34.3% from 2023 to 2024, recovered 73.8% in 2025, then produced $3.97B in the first six months of 2026 alone.
| Year | Rounds | Total Funding | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2023 | 94 | $2.94B | |
| 2024 | 124 | $1.93B | -34.3% |
| 2025 | 154 | $3.36B | +73.8% |
| 2026 (Jan to Jun) | 106 | $3.97B |
Source: Bot Memo analysis of 478 Nordic AI rounds, January 2023 to June 2026. The 2026 row covers six months.
Stegra’s June raise supplies $1.59B of that H1 2026 figure. Without it, the first half of 2026 brought $2.37B across 105 rounds, ahead of all of 2024 and behind the 2025 pace.
Round count is the cleaner signal, and it has climbed every year: 94, then 124, then 154, then 106 in six months. Hold that rate and 2026 finishes near 212 rounds, more than double 2023.
The pipeline behind those numbers is early. Pre-Seed, Seed, and Series A rounds account for 311 of the 478 deals, or 65.1%, against six Series C rounds and 52 growth rounds across the entire period. Compared with London AI startups, the Nordics run a heavier early-stage share and a much thinner late-stage layer, which is why a single growth round can move the regional total by a quarter.
Classification splits the 478 rounds into 217 AI Native companies, 112 AI Application companies building on existing models, 101 AI Augmented, 35 AI Adjacent, and 4 AI Platforms. Our breakdown by funding stage covers how those stage patterns compare globally.
FAQ: Nordic AI Startup Ecosystem
How much funding have Nordic AI startups raised?
Nordic AI startups raised $12.19B across 478 rounds between January 2023 and June 2026. One company, Stegra in Stockholm, accounts for $3.30B of that. The other 476 rounds total $8.89B, and the median round across the whole set is $6.26M.
Which Nordic country leads in AI funding?
Sweden, with $7.65B across 174 rounds, or 62.7% of the regional total. Finland follows on $2.21B across 120 rounds and Denmark on $1.50B across 111. Sweden’s lead shrinks to $4.34B once Stegra’s two raises come out, which puts it closer to Finland and Denmark combined.
Which Nordic city raises the most AI funding?
Stockholm, on 136 rounds worth $6.96B. Copenhagen is second on volume with 90 rounds and Helsinki third with 74. Espoo raises the most per round of any Nordic city at $64.2M, on the back of IQM Quantum Computers and ICEYE.
What are the biggest Nordic AI funding rounds?
Stegra’s €1.5B in 2023 and €1.4B in 2026 are the two largest, worth $1.71B and $1.59B. Legora’s $550M Series D in March 2026 is the largest round raised by a software company in the region, followed by Lovable’s $330M Series B and IQM Quantum Computers’ $320M Series B.
Is Nordic AI funding growing?
Yes, on both measures. Round count rose from 94 in 2023 to 154 in 2025, with 106 already closed in the first half of 2026. Capital fell 34.3% in 2024, rebounded 73.8% in 2025, and reached $3.97B in H1 2026, more than any prior full year.
What do Nordic AI startups build?
Energy & Sustainability leads on round count with 75, followed by Health & Biotech on 64, FinTech on 60, and Developer Tools & AI Infrastructure on 55. That mix reflects what the region already had: decarbonization mandates, healthcare systems with structured patient records, and a payments industry that has been shipping since the Klarna era.
Methodology
Scope: 478 AI-related funding rounds in Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Norway, and Iceland, with funding dates from 1 January 2023 through 30 June 2026. Every figure here covers that window.
Currency: 253 of the 478 rounds were announced in euros, 213 in US dollars, and the rest in Swedish, Norwegian, or British currency. All amounts are converted to US dollars at current rates before any total, median, or ranking is calculated. Original amounts sit alongside converted values in the top rounds table.
Counts and totals: 441 of the 478 rounds carry a disclosed amount, and dollar totals are calculated across those. Round counts include every tracked round.
Classification: each company is classified into Bot Memo’s nine-category system. This set holds 217 AI Native, 112 AI Application, 101 AI Augmented, 35 AI Adjacent, and 4 AI Platforms companies. Four rounds sit in industrial or hardware businesses that use AI without being AI companies, including both Stegra raises, and we name those wherever they move a number.
Multi-vertical rounds: a round listed under several verticals counts once in each, so vertical round counts sum to more than 478.
About the author
Editorial Staff
The Editorial Staff at Bot Memo is a team of writers, analysts, and AI agents dedicated to mapping the global AI startup ecosystem. Led by Chintan Zalani, the team tracks thousands of funding rounds, classifies companies across verticals, and distills it all into actionable intelligence for investors and founders.
