Verda raises $117M to build Europe’s AI cloud hyperscaler on clean Nordic power
What’s the deal? Verda, the Helsinki-based AI cloud infrastructure company formerly known as DataCrunch, has raised $117M (€100M) in a combined debt and equity round. The equity was led by Lifeline Ventures with participation from byFounders, Tesi, and Varma. Debt financing came from a group of Nordic financial institutions. Total funding to date: approximately €170M.
Founded in 2020 by Ruben BryonDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, Verda is now cash flow positive with a revenue run rate that doubled to over $60M in Q1 2026. The company raised €55M just in September 2025, but burned through it by January 2026 due to surging demand.
Why now? The market for AI compute is shifting from bespoke negotiation to on-demand provisioning. Verda is building for a future where AI agents, not humans, drive purchasing decisions — instant access to GPUs through self-service instances, serverless containers, and managed inference endpoints. No sales cycles, no opaque pricing, no lock-in.
What makes Verda different from the GPU rental crowd is vertical integration. The company manages everything from physical servers and data centres to networking and developer tools. Its facilities in Finland and Iceland run on 100% renewable energy with natural cooling, cutting operating costs. Verda is one of a select group of Nvidia Preferred Partners globally, giving it priority GPU access. Customers include 1X Technologies, NokiaDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, ExpressVPNDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, and FreepikDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →.
The European sovereignty angle matters too. As some European companies grow wary of US cloud giants due to the Cloud Act and data residency requirements, Verda’s deliberately European structure becomes a differentiator. Bryon has committed to keeping the company headquartered in Europe.
What could go wrong? Verda is competing directly with CoreWeave, Lambda, and ultimately AWSDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, Microsoft, and Google — companies with orders of magnitude more capital. The fact that 2025's €55M lasted only four months signals how capital-hungry the infrastructure business is. Scaling from Finland and Iceland to the US and Asia will require significantly more investment.
Profitability is a genuine strength, but GPU cloud margins depend heavily on utilisation rates and Nvidia pricing, both of which can shift quickly.
The signal: Verda’s path — profitable at $60M+ run rate, vertically integrated, running on clean energy — is the opposite of the “raise billions, figure out margins later” approach that dominates US AI infrastructure. It suggests there is a viable European playbook for building cloud infrastructure: start lean, own the stack, and use geography as a feature rather than a limitation.
The company plans to open offices in California and Asia and hire 100+ people by year-end, expanding construction to Sweden for larger sites. Whether Verda can maintain its capital efficiency while scaling into the hyperscaler category will determine if this is a regional success story or a global one.
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