The fund has already completed investments in Ukrainian DefenceTech companies including Norda Dynamics, Himera and Sine Engineering, while a fourth portfolio company remains confidential.

Varangians Co-founders Pär Lager, Andreas Flodström and Jonas Rydin said: “We founded Varangians because we have seen how Ukrainian engineers innovate under fire; producing low-cost, effective tech that Europe urgently needs.”

Founded in 2025, Varangians will invest primarily in Ukrainian DefenceTech startups, while also considering non-Ukrainian companies working across military and civil defence. The fund is focused on high-impact technologies being developed and tested in real frontline conditions, with particular attention on unmanned systems, electronic warfare, strategic communications, demining, secure communications, and selected dual-use technologies.

Varangians was founded by a leading Swedish family office alongside entrepreneurs Pär Lager, Andreas Flodström and Jonas Rydin, bringing together experience in technology, defence, entrepreneurship and Ukraine.

Its stated mission is to strengthen Ukraine through DefenceTech investments, while supporting the re-arming of Sweden, the Nordics and wider Europe through Ukrainian innovation, experience and systems.

Their current portfolio:

• Norda Dynamics is developing an autonomous UAV piloting system for mission execution in communication-deprived environments.
• Himera builds user-friendly, EW-resistant secure communications systems for civil and emergency use.
• Sine Engineering is working on a next-generation UAV communication and positioning platform for contested environments involving jamming, interference and spoofing.
• According to Varangians’ website, their fourth confidential company is described as a manufacturer of UAVs, UGVs and components for unmanned systems, as well as providing drone pilot training and an R&D lab for innovation and testing.

Varangians’ model combines targeted scouting, context-aware evaluation and active support after investment. The team says it identifies promising companies through Ukrainian defence innovation ecosystems and trusted networks, then assesses them through a combination of technical insight, operational relevance and governance standards.

It also offers consulting services for organisations looking to establish operations in Ukraine, including support with local partners, security and risk planning, field testing, field engineering and frontline-driven R&D.

The name Varangians refers to the Swedish Vikings who travelled to Ukraine and Kyiv around the year 800 and played a role in the early history of the region alongside Ukrainians.

For the fund, the name is intended to reflect a renewed link between Sweden and Ukraine through technology, resilience and defence innovation.

Flodström is best known as the co-founder of Beetroot, the Swedish-Ukrainian tech ecosystem founded in Stockholm in 2012 by Flodström and Gustav Henman. Beetroot began as a backpack startup and has since grown into an international tech company and social enterprise, engaging more than 400 people across its headquarters in Sweden and R&D locations in Ukraine, Bulgaria, Poland, Romania, Moldova and Vietnam.

The launch of Varangians comes as venture capital interest in DefenceTech continues to rise across Europe, with Ukraine increasingly seen as a key source of battle-tested innovation.

By backing startups solving real frontline problems, the fund is positioning itself around technologies that can support Ukraine now while also strengthening European security in the long term.

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The round was led by Sondo Capital, an Oslo-based venture capital firm, and supported by a group of experienced angel investors from the Nordic tech and e-commerce scenes, including from VILLOID, Kry, Enode, Whitson and others.

“Customer support is only the starting point. Our vision is to automate the operational work that slows e-commerce teams down, while giving consumers instant, personalised help around the clock. This funding round allows us to further accelerate product development, double the team, and save more time and money for e-commerce brands,” said Jørgen Vartdal Halse, CEO and co-founder of Mimir.

Founded in 2024 by Jørgen Vartdal Halse, Jens Kristoffersen, and Øyvind Monsen, Mimir started as an AI-native customer support platform specifically designed for B2C e-commerce companies. The platform currently manages approximately 250,000 customer conversations each month for around 60 brands across 5 countries, helping companies like VILLOID, HiFi Klubben, and Holzweiler. 

Instead of adding AI on top of legacy systems, Mimir claims to be a fully AI-native operations platform specifically for B2C e-commerce. According to the company, it understands orders, deliveries, returns, and products, can handle tasks end-to-end, and is tailored to the brand’s existing systems and workflows. 

Mimir states that it enables e-commerce stores to provide instant, high-quality customer interactions around the clock, while also saving time and money on operational costs.

“We truly believe that customer service and e-commerce operations as we know it will be dramatically changed with AI. The Mimir team embodies exactly what we’re looking for; technically strong founders that combine a great product with a real market pull in a massive market,” said Henrik Hatlebrekke, General Partner and co-founder at Sondo Capital.

The company also revealed that it had no plans to raise capital, having grown roughly 7x over the past year and achieved profitability without external funding. However, it raised funding due to strong inbound interest from multiple funds and some customers.

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The round was led by J&T Ventures, with participation from Seed Starter ČS (Česká spořitelna) and Slovak Investment Holding (SIH). The funding will be used to accelerate expansion across the DACH region, the UK, and the United States.

“Vendor selection today is largely a social process built on relationships, referrals, and reputation. That worked when projects were slower, and the stakes were lower. It doesn’t work anymore. Definic is the name that reflects what we are building: a definitive layer of intelligence between enterprises and the vendors they trust with their most critical projects,”  Lukáš Řezanina, CEO of Definic. 

Founded in 2020, Definic is a vendor intelligence platform helping enterprises improve IT vendor selection through delivery track records, case studies, and live market pricing. 

The company states that enterprises encounter significant challenges in choosing IT vendors, and selecting the wrong one can cost 3 to 5 times the original contract amount. In many situations, procurement teams lack clear insight, as vendor decisions are often made based on reputation, hourly rates, and past relationships.

Definic claims to fix IT procurement by assessing vendors through thousands of data points, including delivery track records, case studies, and live market pricing. It highlights that enterprise clients using Definic have shortened tender cycles from months to weeks and decreased IT vendor expenses by as much as 20%.

“I first met Martin Kešner from J&T Ventures at Vodafone Nápad Roku back in 2023. At that time, we were still early and not yet ready for venture funding, but we stayed in touch and focused on execution. Having J&T Ventures lead this round now is a strong reflection of the trust built over time and the progress the whole team has made. Together with Seed Starter ČS and Slovak Investment Holding, this investment gives us the platform to accelerate product development and take Definic global,” says Robert Dečman, co-founder of Definic and CEO of North America.

The company noted that a major banking group in Central Europe engaged Definic to improve its IT procurement decisions. Using Definic, the group’s procurement team identified 90+ relevant vendors aligned with project requirements, significantly expanding its sourcing options.

Definic reported that this improved visibility reduced tender cycles from 6 weeks to 2 weeks, resulting in €1.2 million in cost savings on €5.4 million spent on IT vendors during the first five months of 2026.

“Definic’s proprietary Vendor Intelligence technology creates a clear and defensible moat in a market long overdue for disruption. Having followed Robert, Lukáš and Michal for several years, we have seen firsthand the execution discipline and relentless commitment that distinguish exceptional founders. We are convinced Definic is set to redefine the standard for the industry,” said Jan Sova, J&T Ventures.

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The financing was secured by Tether, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc., Amazon, NVIDIA, imec.xpand, Bosch, Schaeffler, European Investment Bank, Lingotto Horizon, InterAlpen Partners and others. Last year, in January, the company announced its €120 million Series B funding round led by Lingotto Investment Management,

“The future of AI will not only live on screens. It will move, interact, learn and work beside us in the real world. We believe Physical AI and cognitive robotics will become one of the largest technology shifts of the coming decades, transforming industries ranging from manufacturing and logistics to healthcare, services and household robotics,” said David Reger, founder and CEO of NEURA Robotics. 

Founded in 2019 by David Reger, NEURA Robotics is a robotics and physical AI company building the technologies that enable intelligent machines to learn, adapt and work alongside humans in the real world. The company develops cognitive robots that can see, hear, feel and learn, as well as the software, AI and data infrastructure required to deploy them at scale.

The company is building a new category of AI infrastructure where cognitive robots continuously learn, collaborate and operate across real-world environments through a shared intelligence ecosystem called the Neuraverse. 

Unlike traditional robotics companies focused on isolated machines or narrow industrial automation, the company states that it combines robotics, AI, sensors, edge compute and large-scale learning infrastructure into one unified platform architecture designed for global deployment.

The company believes that as AI transitions from digital systems into the physical world, the next major competitive advantage will come from combining intelligence with real-world interaction, sensing and scalable deployment infrastructure. “In the future, people will not only ask what AI can say. They will ask what AI can physically do,” added Reger. 

To support this transition, NEURA is creating one of the world’s first open Physical AI ecosystems, known as the Neuraverse, where robots constantly share skills, capabilities, and real-world learning across various deployments.

The company is also expanding its global network of NEURA Gyms, specialised large-scale training environments combining real-world sensor interaction, simulation and multimodal learning pipelines to create one of the largest real-world robotics data infrastructures globally.

“Many believed globally relevant AI infrastructure companies could only emerge from Silicon Valley. We believe the next generation of AI leaders can emerge anywhere in the world where there is enough vision, engineering talent and execution speed. With this financing, NEURA is firmly among the global leaders in the robotics race, alongside the best in the US and China. At the end, this is not only about robotics. It is about building technologies the world will depend on,” Reger noted. 

NEURA is also shaping decentralised AI architectures, edge intelligence and machine-native economic systems in collaboration with strategic infrastructure partners. The company believes that trusted, open and interoperable robotics ecosystems will become increasingly important as AI systems move into factories, logistics centres, healthcare environments and homes.

Nicola Beer, Vice President of European Investment Bank, said, “By backing NEURA Robotics, the European Investment Bank is putting serious European firepower behind the next wave of physical AI and cognitive robotics. Through TechEU Europe’s most innovative mid-caps can access patient capital they need to turn cutting-edge research into globally competitive products and skilled jobs here in Europe. From safer factories and smarter logistics to entirely new services, NEURA’s open Neuraverse platform will help thousands of robots learn from each other in real time – accelerating innovation, strengthening Europe’s technological autonomy and turning AI into tangible benefits for workers and businesses.”

With this capital, the company plans to accelerate the global deployment of cognitive robots and humanoids, expand the Neuraverse platform, roll out NEURA Gyms, scale manufacturing and deployment infrastructure, and develop next-generation Physical AI systems.

The company is also ramping up manufacturing and aims to produce several million robots by 2030. It intends to bring its humanoid 4NE1 to industrial clients at scale, starting with the sectors that need it most. Additionally, it is growing its presence from Europe to the US, China, and Japan.

NEURA collaborates strategically with top industrial and AI companies such as Bosch, Schaeffler, Kawasaki, Delta Electronics, Qualcomm Technologies, Amazon, and NVIDIA. It reports that its existing orderbook and strategic deployment pipeline exceed €864.8 million ($1 billion).

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The funding was secured from Chalmers Ventures alongside Navigare Ventures and Almi Invest. 

“We are seeing strong interest in this type of solution. As quantum chips grow, so does the need to adjust and optimise them without having to redesign the entire manufacturing process. With this funding, we can advance our technology and deepen our engagement with customers,” said Peter Hörstedt, CEO and co-founder of Arkeon.

Founded in 2025 by Peter Hörstedt, Andreas Nylander and Marcus Rommel, Arkeon develops a method for superconducting quantum chips where qubit frequencies are adjusted after fabrication, with the goal of improving precision, quality, and yield.

Small production variations can cause chips to underperform, affecting accuracy and yield. By fine-tuning each chip post-production, the company aims to create more stable and reproducible systems.

The company’s approach enables individual tuning of each chip after manufacturing, leading to improved performance and lower production costs. According to Arkeon, it drives controlled current pulse-trains through the junction barrier to adjust junction resistance, tighten frequency placement, and improve wafer-level yield, the company explained. 

The startup initially targets the market for superconducting quantum processors, where both industrial companies and top research institutions are collaborating to scale increasingly complex systems. Arkeon reports that it currently has letters of intent from several potential customers and a pipeline of approximately 30 companies.

“Arkeon is addressing a clear challenge that the quantum industry faces in its next phase. What stands out is the combination of smart and advanced innovation, a defined use case, and early market interest. This is a solution with the potential to play an important role as quantum systems move toward industrial deployment,” said David Storek, Investment Director at Chalmers Ventures.

With this capital, the company plans to fund continued development, customer validation, and preparation for an international market. It also aims to further strengthen its portfolio within next-generation computing and companies addressing fundamental technical challenges in emerging industries.

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The round was led by CRV, with participation from Samsung, LVMH, Cathay Innovation, 20VC, Henkel Ventures, Korelya and Bright Pixel Capital (Sonae) alongside existing investors.

“We didn’t build THEKER to run pilots. We built it to ship robots that work the day they arrive and continue improving every day after. This round accelerates a vision we’ve been building toward from day one: making intelligent, adaptable robotics practical for real industrial operations at global scale,” says Carla Gómez Cano, co-founder of THEKER

THEKER’s raise also sits alongside significant investments in robotics and industrial automation financings reported by this year. Germany’s RobCo, which closed €100 million to expand modular AI-driven robotic manufacturing systems. Stuttgart-based Sereact raised a €93 million Series B in April to scale its physical AI robotics platform across the US, and Norway/US-based Trener Robotics secured €26 million Series A to expand its industrial AI automation and robot skills platform.

“THEKER is solving one of the most important challenges in robotics: bringing general-purpose AI into real production environments where reliability, adaptability and scale actually matter,

“What Carla, Jiaqiang and the team have built is exceptionally rare, a deeply technical platform paired with real commercial deployment momentum. We believe THEKER has the potential to become one of the defining robotics companies of this generation,” added Reid Christian, general partner at CRV

The financing comes less than a year after THEKER closed the largest seed round in Spanish startup history, underscoring the extraordinary speed at which the company has moved from breakthrough technology to real-world industrial deployment.

The round also marks one of CRV’s first investments in Spain, Samsung’s first-ever investment in a Spanish company, and LVMH’s first investment in the Spanish startup ecosystem.

Founded by robotics and AI engineers Carla Gómez Cano and Jiaqiang Ye Zhu, THEKER aims to build a new category of industrial robotics: AI-native generalist robots capable of adapting in real time to changing environments, mixed SKUs, irregular shapes and operational variability without manual reprogramming.

Unlike traditional industrial robots that are rigid, task-specific and costly to reconfigure, THEKER’s says its systems deploy in days, continuously learn in production and operate autonomously in the complexity of real industrial environments.

Already deployed inside live production operations across Europe, THEKER’s robots are designed to help industrial operators increase throughput, reduce downtime and address persistent labor shortages across manufacturing, logistics and retail environments.

The company’s says its rapid traction reflects a broader shift happening across robotics and AI. While advances in foundational AI models have made the idea of generalist robotics possible, few companies globally have successfully bridged the gap between research demonstrations and robots capable of operating reliably in real-world production environments at scale.

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The firm has backed more than 110 companies from Fund III to date. Recent investments include Peec AI, Originator, Sapiom, Fonio, INXM, Mav9, Huzzle, Seapoint, Daisytuner, AskVinny, and Feld Energy.

“The team we are announcing today reflects where we are taking the firm: venture partners who have founded and exited companies, and advisors including a Forbes Midas List investor who backed some of Europe’s biggest breakouts. Our ambitions go beyond the first check. Angel Invest is more than an angel fund,” said Jens Lapinski, Founding Partner of Angel Invest.

Angel Invest’s announcement comes amid other, recent fund announcements.

This week, Antwerp-based Pitchdrive closed its €60 million Fund IV to back AI-native early-stage startups across Europe. Fellow Berlin-based firm Merantix Capital closed a €103 million AI Fund, which will invest in early-stage, AI-native companies while Creator Fund, based in Kensington, UK, closed its first European fund at €48.8 million to back Europe’s scientific founders at pre-Seed stage.

Across more than 250 portfolio companies, Angel Invest’s say their early investments have attracted leading global investors and delivered exits.

Portfolio companies include Augustus (formerly known as Ivy), which scaled to a Series B led by Valar Ventures alongside Creandum; Taktile, backed by Index Ventures and Tiger Global; Rasa, backed by Andreessen Horowitz, Accel, and PayPal Ventures; Spacelift, backed by Insight Partners; and Peec AI, backed by 20VC and Singular.

Regarding the hire of new venture partners and advisors, Jag Singh, Managing Partner of Angel Invest adds: “Nazanin Daneshvar joined us from EQT Ventures after founding and scaling one of the Middle East’s largest startups to hundreds of employees. Connor Murphy, founder of Brdg and a former Managing Director at Techstars, joins as a venture partner,

Both made early investments with us that top-tier VC funds have since followed into. And both spend hundreds of hours a year coaching the founders they invest in.”

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The round was led by TCEE Fund IV, advised by 3TS Capital Partners, with participation from Vinci’s venture capital fund. The founders and existing shareholders retain a majority stake and continue to play a leading role in the company’s future development. This marks Sybilla’s first external funding round, since the company has been entirely self-funded since its inception.

Piotr Sybilski, CEO and co-founder of Sybilla Technologies, said, “We are entering a new and highly ambitious chapter in Sybilla’s growth journey. The capital raised from our investors will be used to expand our sensor network and analytical services, significantly enhancing both our operational capabilities and global coverage. We plan to expand globally, while deepening cooperation with partners across the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy and France. 

Our next major milestone will be deploying our proprietary sensors into orbit. We aim to further commercialise our services, strengthen our position in the defence sector and scale the business multiple times over.”

Founded in 201, Sybilla is a leading European provider of space-observation data and analytics, powered by its proprietary network of 50 optical sensors deployed across six continents. The company operates in the domains of space situational awareness, space surveillance and tracking, space traffic management, near-earth objects, stellar and planetary research, education, and commercial on-demand observations.

The company claims that its systems can detect and track tens of thousands of objects, as small as a beverage can, travelling at speeds well over 10,000 kilometres per hour, from distances of up to 36,000 kilometres. 

It provides space domain awareness data and analytics to national space agencies in Poland, Italy and France, as well as to the European Space Agency (ESA). Its customers also include European institutions such as the European Defence Fund and the EU Space Surveillance and Tracking (EU SST) programme. Sybilla additionally supports the UK Space Command and collaborates with leading aerospace and technology groups, including Airbus and Leonardo.

By the end of this year, the company will double the number of sensors in its network to 100, enabling near-continuous monitoring of 90% of the more than 40,000 objects currently orbiting Earth, with updated observations available at market-leading intervals. 

In the coming years, the company plans to expand its infrastructure to 300 optical devices, deployed across approximately 100 locations worldwide.

Zbigniew Łapiński, Senior Partner at 3TS Capital Partners, emphasised the strategic importance of the investment to Europe’s security: “Sybilla provides critical data that enables the safe operation of satellite infrastructure and supports the development of the space economy. In an era of growing geopolitical uncertainty, access to independent and trusted sources of strategic data is becoming an increasingly valuable asset. We are proud that the technologies developed by Sybilla contribute to strengthening Europe’s autonomy and technological sovereignty in near-Earth orbit.”

With this funding, the company plans to accelerate its ambition to join the global leaders in space monitoring and safety. The investment will enable the company to further contribute to the commercialisation of near-Earth orbit and the continued development of the European space industry.

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Following strong momentum at ISE 2026, Innovation Park returns to the international stage at ISE 2027, giving startups direct exposure to the global AV industry and the opportunity to showcase technologies shaping its future.

Startups turn connections into growth

Building on more than 20 years of innovation at ISE, Innovation Park gives emerging companies direct access to investors, buyers and industry leaders. At ISE 2026, some of the AV industry’s fastest-growing startups used Innovation Park to secure international visibility, investor conversations and new distribution opportunities.

With 130 exhibitors, the programme reinforced its position as a key destination for discovery, networking and business development, where many first conversations developed into international growth opportunities:

Pitching, matchmaking and new business opportunities

The Plug and Play Pitching Stage was a major driver of engagement, hosting 84 pitch sessions and giving startups a direct forum to present to investors, partners and industry stakeholders.

This momentum continued across the broader programme, with tours, networking events and the Speed-Dating Evening Event helping participants build new relationships and open conversations around future collaboration.

The Matchmaking Area, powered by Ambivation, further strengthened the programme, facilitating more than 160 potential one-to-one connections between investors, startups, innovation managers, corporate representatives and other stakeholders.

Seven partner-led sessions featuring BCN Health Hub, Youz Talent, Barcelona Activa, EIT Culture & Creativity, CETT and SETT added further depth, before the week concluded with the ISE Hackathon.

Following strong demand and high engagement at ISE 2026, startups are already securing their place at Innovation Park in Barcelona from the 2-5 February 2027. With increasing investor and buyer engagement, Innovation Park is expected to attract a new wave of AV startups looking to scale internationally.

For information about Innovation Park 2027 and applications, click here.

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