Helsinki AI cloud firm Verda becomes Europe's newest unicorn after €163m raise
Verda, a Helsinki-based provider of AI computing infrastructure, has raised €163 million in an oversubscribed Series B round. The deal pushes its total funding above €390 million and its valuation past the $1 billion (€862 million) mark that defines unicorn status.
Martti Asikainen | 22.9.2026 | Photo by Verda
Helsinki-based AI infrastructure company Verda announced on 22 September that it has raised €163 million (€163M) in new funding. The money will help scale its full-stack AI cloud.
The financing includes an oversubscribed Series B round led by US venture firm Emergence Capital, alongside additional investment, according to the company’s own announcement.
Other participants in the round included MUFG Innovation Partners, computing hardware maker Supermicro, Finnish pension fund Varma Mutual Pension Insurance Company, and Finnish state investment company Tesi.
Existing backers Lifeline Ventures, 6 Degrees Capital and byFounders also took part, alongside angel investors Ola Tørudbakken of Meta and Mark Saroufim of Core Auto and GPUMODE.
The round brings Verda’s total funding to over €390 million. It values the company above $1 billion (€862 million), making it Europe’s newest unicorn, according to the company.
Data centres to platform
Founded in Helsinki in 2020, Verda is a full-stack AI cloud company. It manages everything from physical data centres and hardware through to its cloud platform and AI research. The company employs around 250 people from more than 40 nationalities and operates across Europe, the US and Asia.
The new funding will accelerate product development across all layers of Verda’s AI cloud, from compute capacity to platform services. Inference is a particular focus. The company said it plans to multiply its compute capacity over the next year.
“AI is becoming critical infrastructure across industries, and the next few years are a pivotal window for Europe,” said Ruben Bryon, Verda’s founder and chief executive. “Our north star is to build the first true tech company in Europe, with AI infrastructure as the starting foundation, and to bring down the carbon footprint of compute worldwide.”
Betting on compute demand
Verda’s announcement follows the company reaching an annualised revenue run rate of €142 million in July. Verda has been growing rapidly in recent years and recently opened offices in London and San Francisco. Further expansion is planned across Europe, the US and Asia.
“Demand for AI compute is insatiable, and the gap between demand and supply is growing,” said Joe Floyd, general partner at Emergence Capital. He said Verda was moving quickly to secure and scale capacity. He called it a company with the “technology, ambition, and momentum” to become a defining AI infrastructure business.
The round ranks in the 98th percentile among all-time Series B hardware financings in Finland, based on a sample of 626 deals, according to startup database Dealroom. That places Verda near the top of the country’s hardware fundraising history.
One of six planned unicorns
Tesi, Finland’s state-owned investment company, first backed Verda in 2025. It has participated in multiple subsequent rounds as part of a strategy to build domestic ownership in high-growth technology companies. “Verda is demonstrating remarkable pace as it scales full-stack AI cloud globally, and these are still the early steps,” said Samppa Sirviö, investment manager at Tesi, according to Dealroom.
Tesi aims to help seed six to eight new unicorns in Finland during its 2025–2029 strategy period. Verda joins satellite company ICEYE, quantum computing firm IQM and cryogenics manufacturer Bluefors on that list.
Verda’s unicorn status arrives at a moment of renewed international attention on Finnish deep tech, following record startup funding of over €1.5 billion nationally in 2025.
Whether Tesi’s domestic-ownership strategy will hold as Verda scales globally and takes on more international capital remains an open question — a pattern seen elsewhere in Finland’s tech sector, where fast-growing companies have often shifted toward majority foreign ownership as they expand.
