Artificial intelligence (AI) continues to transform industries at a pace that is both exciting and disruptive. As one of the largest and most active Finnish early-stage investors, Innovestor has a unique vantage point into the fast developing landscape of AI. Our AI portfolio already comprises investments in more than 20 startups across multiple domains and verticals. This briefing provides a glimpse into our AI portfolio and shares emerging insights and trends from our investment activities.
“The AI landscape is moving rapidly on several vectors – from demos to deployment; consumer to enterprise & industrial; and digital to physical. Looking at deal flow and our portfolio, we observe this in real-time. The transition to deployment means moving from testing to full-scale real-world adoption. Viral consumer apps are being complemented by mission-critical business tools. And AI is increasingly embedded in the physical world – through robotics, autonomous vehicles, smart hardware, drones, and edge devices”, explains Innovestor Group CEO, Wilhelm Lindholm.
During the past year several of our AI startups have made significant progress. Capalo AI secured a €3.8 million seed round in the spring 2025 to scale its energy flexibility platform. Confidentialmind raised €1.5 million in a pre-seed round to develop secure, on-premise AI systems. Further, Danish WARD 24/7 secured approximately €3.4 million (DKK 23m) in seed funding for its revolutionary AI-powered patient monitoring technology. While most of the companies in our portfolio currently aim to graduate from pre-seed to seed stage, some are already in Series-A discussions.
Four emerging themes from our portfolio
From our investments, we see four themes that illustrate how AI is being developed and deployed:
1. Verticalized generative AI for domain experts
2. Industrial on-prem and data sovereignty
3. Agentic and autonomous workflows
4. Digital twins and asset digitization.
1. Verticalized generative AI for domain experts
Gen AI is maturing from broad chatbots into highly specific copilots that automate and enhance expert output. The value comes from embedding domain knowledge directly into tools that deliver measurable gains. Our portfolio reflects this shift with companies such as Exhive, Aatos, Elina Education, Amplifiles (Aava AI), Superlines (Grew AI), Noux Digital, The Planet Company and DEEP Measures.
2. Industrial on-prem and data sovereignty
Factories, infrastructure and healthcare rely on sensitive operational data that cannot be freely shared. Compliance with GDPR and the EU AI Act, together with cybersecurity and IP protection, are driving demand for secure and often on-premise AI solutions. In our portfolio, Green Factory AI, CloEE, Capalo AI, Confidentialmind, Yield Systems, Truman Data and Ward 24/7 are tackling these challenges directly.
3. Agentic and autonomous workflows
The next stage of productivity is AI moving from assistive copilots to agentic systems that run critical workflows end to end. This shift is not just about cutting costs but about creating entirely new forms of productivity. Startups like Vira AI, Adeu (Dealfluence), Diploi, PromoRepublic and Fluentic are already building towards this future.
4. Digital twins and asset digitization
Digital replicas of physical assets make it possible to simulate, monitor and optimize operations across industries. Adoption is no longer limited to large corporates as SMEs and mid-market companies are increasingly able to use these tools. Make a BIM, Twinbase and Vaalia Health are examples from our portfolio where digital twins are starting to reshape industries from construction to healthcare.
Unprecedented growth
The AI companies currently being funded have predominantly been founded after the “ChatGPT moment” at the end of 2022. The growth rates of this wave of companies have been unprecedented. This year, Lovable and Cursor set new scaling records by growing to $100m ARR in less than 12 months. According to Andreessen Horowitz, the median enterprise AI startup now reaches +$2 million ARR in its first year, whereas it was $1 million for best-in-class software companies in the pre-AI era. Benchmarks have shifted. More than 2/3 of the companies in our AI portfolio have been founded in 2023 or later, and we are thrilled to see them mature.
Unsurprisingly, investor appetite for AI startups remains strong. Sweden has recently produced several AI unicorns, with Lovable leading the pack, Sana Labs acquired for over $1 billion, and Legora and Tandem Health following. Funding-wise, Finnish AI startups are slightly behind but catching up quickly. Just recently, Helsinki-based AI cloud provider DataCrunch announced a €55 million funding round to develop a Europe-based AI gigafactory. And already, according to a fresh study by EIB, Finland is the EU leader in adoption of Gen AI.
With this momentum, we’re confident that the coming months will bring exciting announcements from our portfolio as well.