NestAI raises € 100 million for Physical AI Kritis-Lab in Europe

Helsinki (Finland) — NestAI, a Finnish start-up company, has raised around 100 million euros in a finan­cing round led by the Finnish sove­reign wealth fund Tesi and tele­com­mu­ni­ca­ti­ons giant Nokia.

This capi­tal will help NestAI achieve its goal of crea­ting “Euro­pe’s leading physi­cal AI labo­ra­tory” dedi­ca­ted to the deve­lo­p­ment of arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence tech­no­lo­gies for defense and criti­cal infra­struc­ture. Its work focu­ses on unman­ned vehic­les, auto­no­mous opera­ti­ons and advan­ced command and control systems. 

Peter Sarlin founds again

The co-foun­­der of NestAI, Peter Sarlin (photo © Silo AI), previously built up the AI start-up Silo AI and sold it to AMD for 665 million dollars. He is now Chair­man of NestAI and also works at AMD. Sarlin supports the startup through his family office Post­Scrip­tum, which provi­ded finan­cial back­ing to NestAI during its stealth phase. 

The tech­no­lo­gi­cal back­bone of NestAI is “physi­cal AI”, where large-scale language models and AI tech­no­lo­gies are applied beyond soft­ware and embedded into robo­tics and physi­cal systems used in real-world defense envi­ron­ments. This sets NestAI apart from compe­ti­tors such as Avalor AI, Aron­dite and Helsing, which focus on purely digi­tal AI applications. 

The NestAI team is top-class

The start-up’s team of around 70 people consists of execu­ti­ves from Intel, Kong­sberg, Palan­tir, Saab and other indus­tries who have the tech­ni­cal and opera­tio­nal exper­tise requi­red to deve­lop AI systems that are robust, secure and inter­ope­ra­ble in mission-criti­­cal contexts.

In the future, NestAI plans to signi­fi­cantly expand its physi­cal AI lab while deepe­ning part­ner­ships with Euro­pean armed forces, inclu­ding targe­ted support to the Finnish Armed Forces.