Norrsken’s new Evolve fund is a €57m bet on European resilience

Norrsken is retiring its four-year-old accelerator and rolling out a new €57m pre-seed fund, Norrsken Evolve, with a bigger cheque size and a focus on European resilience.

“Resilience as part of the investment thesis is a bit new for us, although we’ve made those kinds of investments before, along with sustainability and climate, which are always important to us,” says Löthman Rydå.

For Löthman Rydå, resilience includes ensuring access to energy, critical raw materials, and food; building a competitive, sustainable manufacturing sector; green logistics and distribution; and a more efficient healthcare system.

Evolve may invest in dual-use technologies – those with both defence and civil applications – says Löthman Rydå. But she’s adamant they will not back startups that develop “products or services intended to harm people or societies.”

The shift comes as climate tech funding dips globally, while defence tech booms amid rising security concerns in Europe.

‘We stand by our values’

Despite leaning into resilience, Löthman Rydå insists the new fund doesn’t depart from Norrsken's initial focus.

“We haven’t said, ‘climate tech is dead, now we’re doing something else’. We’ve been very clear about Norrsken’s mission. We stand firmly by our values – and I think that can stand out among a lot of opportunistic players.”

For now, the first 13 startups mainly span climate tech, biotech, healthtech – with a strong emphasis on AI applications. (10 are listed below; 3 chose to remain confidential).

It’s an exclusive group – the Evolve team reviewed around 3,000 companies in the process, with only 0.7% getting an initial investment. “It’s harder to get in here than at Stanford,” laughs Löthman Rydå.

More cash on the table

The new fund has €57m to invest. For startups looking for a slice of the pie, good news: the initial investment will be almost double that of the previous fund. Norrsken Evolve will put in €250,000 (about SEK 2.8m) at the first stage, and also promises to make follow-on investments in the companies they believe in most.

The money comes from, among others, state-owned Saminvest, the European Investment Fund, and Smartcap Green Fund, which is backed by the EU’s post pandemic recovery fund Next Generation EU. Several tech founders and family offices also chipped in.

Here are 10 out of the 13 companies that have received funding:

• Aiomics Country: Germany Uses AI to turn Europe’s medical records into actionable insights for healthcare and research.
• Atmospheric AI Country: United Kingdom Provides AI tools to make global supply chains more transparent and trackable.
• Bubble Robotics Country: France Develops underwater robot networks to support infrastructure, ecosystems, and climate resilience.
• Chain Bioreactor Country: Portugal Builds scalable 3D-printed bioreactors for biotech applications.
• FION Energy Country: Germany Creates smart industrial battery storage systems to cut energy costs.
• Humla Country: Sweden Offers a wearable AI platform that lets healthcare workers operate hands-free and more efficiently.
• Jälle Technologies Country: Estonia Transforms battery waste into lithium and graphene-like materials for reuse.
• New Dawn Bio Country: Netherlands Develops biotech that produces finished wood products thousands of times faster than traditional methods.
• Super6 Country: United Kingdom Works on next-gen supercapacitors to enable highly efficient, clean energy usage.
• TetraxAI Country: Spain Uses AI to speed up and reduce the risk of developing energy transition infrastructure projects.