Encube emerges from stealth with $23M funding to reshape hardware development

Stockholm-based Encube has emerged from stealth with $23
million in funding from Inventure, Promus Ventures, and Kinnevik.

Encube builds an AI-driven platform
that helps hardware teams identify which design choices create manufacturing
complexity and how to avoid them. The result is faster development, lower
production costs, and the ability to explore far more design options.

Founded
by former Sandvik executive Hugo Nordell (CEO) and Skype/Klarna veteran Johnny Bigert, Encube is rethinking how engineering teams collaborate on hardware
product design.

European manufacturing is being
reshaped by geopolitics, a tightening talent pipeline, and the shift to
sustainable production. Supply-chain fragmentation and economic nationalism are
driving efforts to re-shore capabilities and secure industrial autonomy.

Meanwhile, an ageing workforce and past offshoring have widened skill gaps.
Stricter sustainability rules are pushing for earlier, smarter design and digital
workflows. Because most product costs are locked at design, late-stage impacts
on manufacturing expense and carbon footprint often force firms to choose
between lower margins or redesigns and delays.

Encube addresses these
challenges through two approaches. First, it offers a browser-based
collaborative platform that helps organisations align and make faster,
higher-quality product decisions across devices. Second, it embeds AI
capabilities that remove common hardware-development bottlenecks. These
workflows are essential yet typically manual and time-consuming. Encube aims to
make them faster, more accurate, and scalable.

The
platform has been tested in R&D programs with partners ranging from large
industrial firms to specialised space companies. Reported outcomes include
reduced time to market (up to 50 per cent), lower production costs (20–30 per
cent), and higher engineering productivity (up to 2×).

Hardware development is a
balancing act between how a product looks, functions and what it costs to
produce. In Europe, we excel at the first two, but our manufacturing know-how
is disappearing. At Sandvik and Aker, I saw firsthand how quickly production
costs ballooned and competitive edge eroded, when early design decisions
weren’t made with manufacturing in mind. We built Encube to change that,

shared Hugo Nordell.

The
new funding will support expansion across European markets, growth of existing
partnerships, and increased investment in hardware-focused AI, positioning the
company to accelerate its participation in the ongoing AI transformation.