Stockholm-based Nordic Air Defence, a defence tech startup, announced on Tuesday that it has secured €1.2M in funding led by Norway’s SNÖ Ventures.
The funding round also saw participation from private investors, including Noam Perski, who joined Nordic Air Defence as a strategic advisor.
New investors joining the Nordic Air Defence board, also investing in a personal capacity, are Northzone co-founder, Jörgen Bladh, and Jan Gurander, former naval officer and former Deputy CEO and CFO of Volvo Group and Chairman of the board at Essity and board member at Skanska.
They join existing board members: Chairman Johan Ahlberg, a former senior partner at McKinsey & Company who is also investing in this round; Erik Fredlund, founder of AI consulting firm Codon; and Gustav Wiberg, co-founder of Nordic Air Defence and Katla Aero.
Karl Rosander, CEO and founder of Nordic Air Defence, says, “This investment will accelerate Nordic Air Defence’s development as a business in terms of development and staffing, and help bring the Kreuger 100 to the market faster. Great news for Nordic Air Defence, but also for those who appreciate that a new kind of European defence tech ecosystem needs to be kickstarted. Europe has, for too long, proved reliant on US support.”
Fund utilisation
The Swedish company will use the capital to accelerate R&D and airborne testing – ahead of the company’s forthcoming seed round.
The announcement comes a couple of months after emerging from Stealth mode in September 2024 and introducing its first product: the Kreuger 100 dual-use (civil and military) drone interceptor platform.
Karl Rosander adds, “In the weeks since we emerged from stealth mode, the enthusiasm for our product has allowed us to close a strategic round and secure the support of a group of world-class innovators and sector experts: a significant achievement for a company at our early stage.”
Nordic Air Defence: Developing high tech defensive solutions
Founded by Karl Rosander, a veteran in the tech industry, Nordic Air Defence is developing high-tech defensive solutions for both civilian and military use.
Made in Sweden, the Kreuger 100 is a dual-use (civil and military) drone interceptor platform that uses batteries instead of fuel-based propulsion.
As per the company’s claims, Kreuger 100 will be ten times cheaper to produce than some conventional technology, such as interceptors or missiles, used to destroy drones.
While typical interceptors rely heavily on hardware like motors, flight controllers, and cameras, the Kreuger 100 minimises these components through advanced aircraft control software.
The team features veterans from some of the world’s leading defence, drone, and tech companies including Palantir, Kratos, FOI (the Swedish Defence Research Agency), Acast, Zipline, SAAB, AI consultancy Codon, Quantum Systems, and many others.
“The global defence tech sector has become oligarchical and slow-moving and is ripe for disruption. The urgency around the need to create COVID-19 vaccines, which necessitated rapid public sector and private collaboration and innovation, breaking established rules, must be applied to European defence tech. Nordic Air Defence is here to change the paradigm,” concludes Rosander.
The investor
SNÖ Ventures is an early-stage, Nordic-focused VC firm partnering with entrepreneurs embarking on uniquely challenging journeys.
Max Samuel, Partner at SNÖ Ventures, comments, “The established defence primes have built a system of bloated costs and stunted innovation, leaving Europe dependent on foreign technology and inefficient incumbents. NAD exemplifies the necessary transformation: private European-built defence technology that leverages software innovation to dramatically reduce costs and accelerate development cycles. This isn’t just about disrupting legacy players – it’s about building the technological sovereignty Europe urgently needs.”
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