Helsinki-based AI cloud company Verda has become Europe’s latest unicorn after raising $189 million in a Series B round led by Emergence Capital. The company, formerly known as DataCrunch, is building full-stack AI infrastructure for high-performance GPU computing, with its valuation now above $1 billion.
Helsinki-based AI infrastructure company Verda has entered Europe’s unicorn club after raising $189 million in a Series B funding round announced on September 22, 2026.
The company, formerly known as DataCrunch, is building a full-stack AI cloud designed around the growing computing requirements of modern artificial intelligence.
Verda was founded in Helsinki in 2020 by Ruben Bryon and began as a self-service GPU cloud.
The company’s early focus was straightforward: make high-performance GPU computing easier for AI developers to access without the long procurement cycles associated with traditional cloud infrastructure.
Verda says the business became cash-flow positive within weeks of launch.
In 2024, the company raised $13 million in seed funding. In 2025, DataCrunch changed its name to Verda and raised $64 million in Series A funding while becoming an NVIDIA Preferred Partner.
The company has since expanded its operations beyond Finland, opening offices in London and San Francisco.
Verda’s latest Series B raised $189 million and was led by Emergence Capital.
The funding has pushed Verda’s valuation above $1 billion, making it Europe’s latest reported unicorn.
The company has not disclosed an exact valuation figure.
The new capital will be used to expand computing capacity, develop the platform and accelerate international growth, with inference infrastructure receiving particular attention.
Verda also plans to increase its computing capacity severalfold within the next year.
Verda is not building another general-purpose cloud.
Its platform is focused specifically on AI workloads, providing access to GPUs, clusters and other infrastructure needed for model training and inference.
The company operates across the infrastructure stack, including physical data centers, hardware, networking, cloud software and AI research.
This vertically integrated approach gives Verda direct control over how its infrastructure is designed and operated.
Its platform includes self-service GPU instances and clusters, serverless containers and managed inference endpoints.
The growth of generative AI has created a huge demand for computing capacity.
AI companies need GPUs not only to train large models but also to serve those models to users.
Inference is becoming particularly important as AI agents and production AI applications require continuous computing resources.
Verda is positioning itself around this shift.
Instead of selling an AI application directly to consumers, it provides the underlying infrastructure that AI companies can use to build and operate their products.
The unicorn milestone follows rapid financial growth.
Verda reported a $100 million revenue run rate during the first half of 2026.
By July 2026, recent reporting put its annualized revenue run rate at approximately $165 million.
That represents a significant increase from the more than $60 million revenue run rate the company reported in the first quarter of 2026.
Verda has also said that it is cash-flow positive.
Verda’s growth is happening alongside a broader European push to build AI infrastructure within the region.
The company operates from Finland and emphasizes European data sovereignty, security and sustainability.
Its Finnish data centers use renewable energy, while its infrastructure strategy is designed to provide customers with high-performance computing closer to their required markets.
Verda is also expanding internationally across Europe, the United States and Asia.
Verda has established a close relationship with NVIDIA and became an NVIDIA Preferred Partner.
The company has been deploying successive generations of NVIDIA hardware and plans to deploy NVIDIA Vera Rubin systems across Europe, the US and Asia.
Verda has said that its Rubin deployment could exceed 100,000 GPUs throughout 2027.
That gives the company a potentially important role in the supply chain connecting advanced AI hardware with companies that need compute capacity.
The company's core strategy is vertical integration.
Instead of simply renting hardware from another provider, Verda operates across data centers, infrastructure, cloud software and AI research.
Its internal AI Lab also uses the same infrastructure available to customers, allowing the company to develop expertise around real-world AI workloads.
The result is a business positioned between traditional cloud infrastructure and specialized AI compute.
Verda’s unicorn moment shows that the AI startup economy is expanding beyond model developers.
The first wave of AI investment concentrated heavily on foundation models and AI applications.
A parallel infrastructure market is now developing around GPUs, data centers, networking, cloud platforms and inference.
Verda is betting that AI compute will become critical infrastructure for the next generation of software.
Its $189 million funding round gives the company more capital to expand that infrastructure while demand for AI compute continues to grow.
From a GPU cloud launched in a Helsinki garage to a billion-dollar AI infrastructure company, Verda’s journey illustrates how quickly the economics of AI computing are changing.
AI-generated representational image.
