Finnish startup NestAI has raised 100 million euros (approximately $115 million) in a funding round led by Finnish sovereign wealth fund Tesi and hardware giant Nokia to develop AI products for use in driverless vehicles, autonomous driving, and command and control platforms.
NestAI also partnered with Nokia to build AI products for defense applications and develop “physical AI” that uses large-scale language models and related technologies for robotics and other real-world applications.
Co-founder Peter Sahlin said at technology conference Slush 2025 in Helsinki that the funding will help NestAI build “Europe’s leading physical AI lab.”
Physical AI is a growing area of research for both Big Tech and startups, and NestAI’s funding round shows there is scope for European companies to develop homegrown solutions to address the continent’s needs, with the protracted Ukraine-Russia war leaning toward defense applications. Last month, the startup announced it would help the Finnish Defense Force implement AI.
This focus on sovereignty may explain why NestAI has operated in secret until now, but it is now being built in public with the support of Mr. Sahlin, who has been funding the venture for the past few months through his family’s office, PostScriptum.
“In line with PostScriptum’s mission, NestAI aimed from the beginning to be Europe’s leading physical AI lab that promotes technological sovereignty,” Sahlin told TechCrunch. “This partnership is also an important step in securing Europe’s defense capabilities and sovereignty.”
After selling his AI startup Silo AI to AMD for $665 million last year, Sahlin has become a philanthropist and investor, backing startups like Legora and Lovable. While building NestAI, his day job will still be at AMD, and he will only act as the startup’s chairman, not CEO.
tech crunch event
san francisco
|
October 13-15, 2026
NestAI doesn’t yet have a CEO, but its growing team includes people with experience in hardware projects that overlap with AI research and defense. A significant number of our staff previously worked for Intel, and others were previously employed by Kongsberg, Palantir, Saab, and others.
