Finnish startup NestAI has raised €100 million (about $115 million) in a funding round led by Finland’s sovereign fund, Tesi, and hardware giant Nokia to build AI products for use in unmanned vehicles, autonomous operations, and command and control platforms.
NestAI has also struck a partnership with Nokia to build AI products for defense applications and develop “physical AI,” which involves using large language models and related technology for robotics and other real-world applications.
The funding will help NestAI build “Europe’s leading physical AI lab,” co-founder Peter Sarlin said at the Slush 2025 technology conference in Helsinki.
Physical AI has been a growing research field both for Big Tech and startups, and NestAI’s funding round shows there’s space for European companies to develop homegrown solutions to address the continent’s needs — which have leaned toward defense applications due to the prolonged Ukraine-Russia war. Last month, the startup announced it would support the Finnish Defence Forces in adopting AI.
This focus on sovereignty may explain why NestAI has been in stealth so far, but it is now building in public, supported by Sarlin, who has been funding the venture for the past few months through his family office, PostScriptum.
“In line with PostScriptum’s mission, NestAI has from the start set out to become Europe’s leading physical AI lab to drive technological sovereignty,” Sarlin told TechCrunch. “This partnership also marks an important step in securing Europe’s defense capabilities and sovereignty.”
After selling AI startup Silo AI to AMD for $665 million last year, Sarlin has been active as a philanthropist and investor, backing startups like Legora and Lovable. While he’s building NestAI, his day job is still at AMD, and he will only act as the startup’s chairman, not its CEO.
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NestAI doesn’t have a CEO yet, but its growing team has attracted talent with experience in AI research and hardware projects that overlap with defense. A significant number of its staff formerly worked for Intel, while others were formerly employed by the likes of Kongsberg, Palantir, and Saab.
