Helsinki-based startup DataCrunch has raised €55 million in a mix of equity and debt to expand its AI-focused cloud infrastructure. The funding comes less than a year after its €12 million seed round in October 2023.
The equity financing was led by byFounders, with participation from Skaala, the family office of Wise cofounder Taavet Hinrikus, Finnish pension fund provider Varma, and sovereign wealth fund Tesi. Debt financing was provided by Nordea, Armada Credit Partners, Danske Bank, Norion Bank, and Lahitapiola (Local Tapiola).
Founded in 2020 by Ruben Bryon, DataCrunch offers GPU-based cloud services optimized for AI training and inference. The company operates four data centres in Finland and Iceland, with customers including Sony and Freepik. Its main Helsinki facility also recycles waste heat to warm parts of the city.
Bryon said the company was created to serve early-stage startups priced out of hyperscaler platforms like AWS and Google Cloud. “For me, someone who was hacking away in the basement, I couldn’t find a service that aligned with what I wanted to achieve, the pricing was just completely out of whack” he said.
Startups often struggle with quota restrictions from larger providers, Bryon added. “If you’re facing annoyances like quotas with the hyperscalers, that is often something that we can help our customers with to be much faster in making sure that the customer is not running out of compute on our platform.”
The company pitches itself as a European hyperscaler alternative, particularly for security-sensitive clients unable to work with U.S. providers. “We have a growing number of customers which are much more security sensitive and which, by default, cannot really work with the US providers” Bryon noted.
With the new capital, DataCrunch plans to expand its infrastructure footprint and deploy Nvidia’s latest B300 and GB30 GPU systems.
