NordicNinja Leads Seed Round Investment in Swedish AI Startup Redpine

NordicNinja, one of the largest Japanese venture capital firms in Europe, is pleased to announce its lead investment in a 6.8 million euro seed round for Swedish AI startup Redpine. Luminar Ventures and node.vc (both Stockholm-based venture capital firms) also participated in this round.

This funding will accelerate Redpine's global expansion. To achieve this, the company will further accelerate the development of its platform, including the advancement of its unique search and re-ranking technology, led by its co-founder and data scientist, Leonora Vesterbacka. Redpine will also strengthen its collaboration with leading global AI research institutions. Furthermore, the funding will be used to expand data partnerships with data owners to secure access to high-value, private data in key industries.

Redpine will also strengthen its recruitment in engineering, data science, and go-to-market strategy. Its core team consists of talent with experience from leading Nordic tech unicorns such as Spotify, SanaLabs, Zettle, and Lunar, as well as global companies like McKinsey, CERN, and H&M. Marek Kiisa, General Partner at NordicNinja, will also join the company's board of directors.

Strategic angel investors in this round include founders of leading European AI companies such as Peter Sarlin (co-founder of Silo AI), Patrik Tran (co-founder of Validio), and Anna Nordell Westling (co-founder of Sana), as well as leaders from OpenAI, Perplexity, and Spotify.

**Closing the "Data Gap" in AI**

Currently, publicly available data for AI training accounts for only 1-2% of the world's total data. Redpine was founded in 2024 by Anders Hammarbäck and David Österdahl to close this "AI information gap." Through partnerships with data owners, the company aims to provide trusted, private, and premium data in compliance with regulations. It has already established collaborations with leading global AI research institutions and the US biotechnology company AsedaSciences.

Anders, a former venture capital partner, identified a problem where many AI startups rely on the same data scraped from the internet, lacking competitive advantage, accuracy, and fair compensation for data owners. David, an early member of Spotify, has experience transitioning the music industry from declining record and CD sales and piracy issues to a streaming model, and he notes the structural similarities between the two areas.

**Comment from Anders Hammarbäck, CEO and Co-founder of Redpine:**

"Redpine is building the infrastructure for a token-based agent economy to bring sustainable growth to all stakeholders. The potential in this area is immense, with applications expected across a wide range of domains, including clinical guidelines, case law, research papers, financial market data, and high-quality news."

**Comment from David Österdahl, CPTO and Co-founder of Redpine:**

"We have identified a fundamental challenge and are developing scientific solutions for building robust access models for agent data. As seen in the music industry, the piratical scraping economy is only temporary and will eventually be replaced by a sustainable mechanism. Redpine is that solution."

**Comment from Marek Kiisa, General Partner at NordicNinja:**

"The performance of agent-based AI depends on the quality of training data, but currently, most of the world's knowledge is inaccessible to AI. With an AI-native team backed by excellent execution experience, I am confident that Redpine will become a foundational company in the era of agent-based AI."

**Platform Overview**

Redpine provides a headless (API-based) platform that allows AI companies and AI agents to search and utilize premium data across various domains. It particularly focuses on scientific data.