A Swedish startup, Evroc, with the ambitious goal of building a hyperscale cloud company in Europe, has secured €50.6 million ($55 million) in Series A funding. This funding will allow Evroc to lay the groundwork for a “secure, sovereign, and sustainable hyperscale cloud” designed to reshape the digital future of Europe.
This announcement arrives amidst increasing calls for a European technology stack, independent of U.S. tech firms and shifts in the political landscape. Recent efforts include a coalition of European tech industry leaders urging lawmakers to take “radical action” to diminish the region’s dependence on foreign-owned digital infrastructure, pushing for native alternatives to a wide range of cloud services, including apps, AI models, and chips.
Evroc aims to capitalize on this momentum. The three-year-old company intends to build data centers and offer a comprehensive suite of cloud services. At its launch in 2023, Evroc outlined its plans to establish eight data centers by 2028. Today, the company has two co-location facilities in Stockholm and another two in Paris. By the end of the second quarter of this year, Evroc expects to have two more facilities operational in Frankfurt. In addition, work is underway on its first flagship data centers in Sweden and France, scheduled to be completed in 2026, with AI workloads as a primary focus.
“They [the new data centers] are designed for the energy density required for AI, where racks can consume 20 times what a traditional server rack can,” said Evroc CEO and founder Mattias Åström. “Both will be equipped with liquid cooling but will also host compute and storage servers.”
Evroc is set to launch its formal services later this year. According to Åström, the company is already working with early beta customers in industries that require a “high need for sovereignty,” including defense, public sector, healthcare, and financial services. He hinted at the possibility of more data centers opening next year, although specific details are not yet available.
The Rise of Digital Sovereignty
Concerns around Europe’s digital sovereignty agenda aren’t new. In fact, many U.S. tech giants are already investing in local infrastructure to comply with EU data residency regulations. OpenAI, a leader in AI technology, recently unveiled a service allowing clients to process and store their data within Europe.
However, with escalating geopolitical tensions, Åström argues that having control over Europe’s infrastructure is more important than simply having servers located in the region. For instance, the U.S. government’s sanctions against the International Criminal Court (ICC) in the Netherlands, which relies heavily on Microsoft’s Azure cloud, demonstrated the potential impact of political decisions on tech services. Furthermore, Elon Musk’s previous actions regarding Starlink satellite access for Ukraine highlighted the risks of infrastructure dependence.
These events emphasize the need for infrastructure independence. The EU is moving forward with plans for its sovereign satellite constellation to rival Starlink. Åström stated, “I simply want Europe to control its own destiny. And while we’re at it, try to build something that is better.”
AI Fuels Cloud Adoption in Europe
Beyond geopolitical concerns, the AI revolution is pushing organizations to consider cloud solutions to harness the full potential of AI, particularly those that previously relied on on-premises infrastructure. Several European startups, including France’s FlexAI, Finland’s DataCrunch, and Nebius in the Netherlands are already building cloud infrastructure to take advantage of this demand. However, while some of these companies focus on AI computing, Evroc is aiming to deliver a comprehensive, developer-friendly hyperscale cloud that competes more directly with industry leaders such as AWS.
The majority of Evroc’s 60+ employees are dedicated to software development, located primarily across Sweden, France, and the U.K. Åström mentioned that the London hub was not part of the original plan but became essential for attracting top talent from major tech firms. “I’m actually very excited about our London office — that wasn’t part of the initial plan, but in order to get extremely smart people that are working for the hyperscalers, it was the right decision,” Åström stated.
Funding and Future Plans
When Evroc emerged from stealth two years ago with €13 million in funding, Åström shared his plan to raise up to €3 billion within a couple of years. Last year, news broke that Evroc had raised €42 million as part of its Series A, and now the round has closed at €50.6 million with investments from Blisce, EQT Ventures, Norrsken VC, and Giant Ventures.
Building a cloud infrastructure that rivals the major players is a capital-intensive endeavor, but the company is pushing forward. “That’s still the case, but the key here is [first] getting that software stack,” Åström said. “Europe has a lot of data centers, but we don’t really have that cloud. This equity round is really helping us build the software stack.”
The company plans to raise significantly more capital in 2025, following a funding model similar to other cloud infrastructure providers such as CoreWeave. “Building out data centers will require a lot of additional investment, but the good news is that you can finance that with debt,” Åström said.
