In recent years, the EU has introduced several new requirements to make products more sustainable and circular. Fundamentally, there is a law requiring the entire union to be climate neutral by 2050 – as well as specific directives on emission rights and sustainable design.
One company aiming to help the industry transition is Encube – a Swedish deeptech firm that has been around since 2021 but is now entering the launch phase – which has developed a new AI platform that, among other things, automates manual tasks for industrial companies.
It's not just about sustainability, it should be noted, but also about cutting costs.
"Developing hardware is about balancing how a product should function, look, and what it should cost to manufacture. In Europe, we are strong in the first two, but our manufacturing competence is disappearing," says Hugo Nordell who is co-founder and CEO of the company in a press comment.
He – who founded Encube together with Johnny Bigert from Skype and Klarna – saw the problems during his years at industrial and energy companies.
"At Sandvik and Aker, I saw how quickly costs could skyrocket and competitiveness be lost when production wasn't considered from the start. We founded Encube to change that, to help teams make better decisions earlier," he says.
According to the company, their platform has already been tested and validated by companies like Volvo, Beyond Gravity and Scania. Now that they are launching, it's with a substantial investment: 215 million SEK from, among others, Kinnevik, Inventure and American Promus Ventures.
"We are incredibly proud to have been among the first investors in Encube. The team's progress has been as impressive as their ability to deliver. We are convinced that Encube has the potential to do for the industry what Figma did for web design and fundamentally change how hardware is developed," says Adrian Arnsvik Bjurefalk, principal at Inventure in a press comment.