Verda (formerly DataCrunch), a Helsinki-based AI infrastructure company, announced today that it has raised €164.8 million ($189 million) in fresh funding to scale its full-stack AI cloud. With this funding, the company has become Europe’s latest unicorn.
The financing includes an oversubscribed Series B led by Emergence Capital, plus additional investment. Investors participating in the financing include MUFG Innovation Partners, Supermicro, Varma Mutual Pension Insurance Company, Lifeline Ventures, 6 Degrees Capital (6DC), byFounders, Tesi (Finnish Industry Investment Ltd). A group of angel investors also participated, including Ola Tørudbakken (Meta) and Mark Saroufim (Core Auto and GPUMODE).
“AI is becoming critical infrastructure across industries, and the next few years are a pivotal window for Europe. 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. We’re proud of our progress but are a long way from being done,” said Ruben Bryon, Verda’s founder and CEO.
Founded in 2020 by Bryon, Verda is a full-stack AI cloud company that claims to manage everything from physical data centres and hardware to the cloud platform and AI research. The company highlighted that its data centres in Finland run on 100% renewable energy, drawing on the Nordics’ natural advantages in clean electricity and cooling efficiency.
Last November, DataCrunch rebranded as Verda. “The name Verda is derived from the Spanish word for ‘true’ and the Esperanto word for ‘green’. The name change symbolises and reinforces our values of technological integrity and sustainable innovation,” the company mentioned.
The announcement comes after the company reached a €143.85 million ($165 million) annualised revenue run rate in July and secured a €22 million loan from the Nordic Investment Bank (NIB). In April this year, the Finnish unicorn raised nearly €102 million ($117 million) in equity funding led by Lifeline Ventures.
Last year, in September, the company raised a total of €55 million in a Series A round led by byFounders, Skaala, Varma pension fund, and Tesi. In 2024, it raised a €12 million Seed funding round. It has raised over €392.3 million ($450 million) in total funding.
“Demand for AI compute is insatiable, and the gap between demand and supply is growing. Verda is moving quickly to secure and scale capacity, with the technology, ambition, and momentum to become a defining AI infrastructure company,” said Joe Floyd, General Partner at Emergence Capital.
The company aims to use this capital to accelerate product development across all layers of its AI cloud, from compute capacity to platform services for frontier AI teams in the agentic era.
Verda also intends to invest in areas such as inference and plans to increase its compute capacity over the next year. It recently opened offices in London and San Francisco and plans to expand further across Europe, the United States, and Asia. It operates globally and employs around 250 people from over 40 nationalities.
