Sweden’s Echandia rides Europe's defence tech boom: "Already delivering to NATO"

As Impact Loop’s Swedish-language sister site revealed in January, Swedish battery company Echandia had already raised €8.3 million in capital by the start of 2025.

Now the company has secured additional funding, from Spanish fund Alantra's energy transition fund, Klima, alongside Industrifonden (a Swedish government-backed venture capital firm). Swedish fund SEB Greentech VC and Japanese venture capital firm EEI were also involved.

The new funding totals €19.5 million, reports Swedish business site Di Digital.

Echandia specialises in LTO batteries (Lithium-titanate), which are tailored for use in boats, and the company views itself as a key player in the electrification of global naval operations.

A boom in European defence technologies

The firm’s growth comes amid increased defence spending across Europe, and a renewed interest in defence-related technologies in Sweden and Finland, after the Nordic nations joined NATO following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Until now, most of the funding in the Nordics has, however, flowed into Finnish companies. A recent report from Scandinavian bank Danske Bank and tech data platform Dealroom revealed that Finnish defence tech companies attracted 85% of all Nordic investment in the sector between 2019-2024, raising nearly €1 billion. Meanwhile, Swedish companies secured just 5% (approximately €47 million). This disparity exists despite Sweden's long tradition of defence innovation, with experts suggesting that regulatory hurdles and limited access to early-stage capital have hampered growth in the Swedish defence tech ecosystem.

When Impact Loop reaches Torbjörn Bäck, CEO of Echandia, he shares more about the investors choosing to invest their cash in Echandia:

"The Spanish and Japanese investors are two funds that focus on companies within the energy transition, and we fit in there. They're good owners to bring in, considering we already work extensively in Europe outside the Nordic region and have begun expansion in Asia where we have major suppliers," he says.

Electrification in shipping is starting to gain momentum

Bäck tells us that despite the ongoing fundraising challenges facing many European impact sectors, it wasn’t difficult for his firm to raise the money.

"We see it as a strength to have attracted such good investors, even if the financing process may have taken longer now than it would have done a few years ago. It has gone relatively smoothly."

The CEO says the capital will be used to expand the business, including the development of production facilities in Sweden and in the USA, where the company recently established manufacturing through a subsidiary.

"We've just moved into new premises in Stockholm, with both office and factory space where we can grow. Our focus is on production to handle the large orders we have, while our establishment in the USA has been completed and will be developed further now," explains Bäck.

Echandia has increased its turnover tenfold in very a short timeframe, from €2.4 million in 2023 and is set to reach over €26.6 million this year, according to Di Digital. Among other things fuelling their success is an order worth over €8.9 million from a Northern European ferry operator.

"We've established ourselves smartly and shown large customers that our systems work very well. We also see that electrification in shipping is starting to gain momentum with larger projects. The market is growing and we've found a clear role in it," says Bäck.

The firm's establishment in the US comes at a politically tumultuous time. Speaking to Impact Loop the day before President Trump announces he is pausing military assistance to Ukraine, Bäck says he sees both risks and opportunities as a result of ongoing US-European tensions.

"There is an increased political risk, but when it comes to energy policy, many of the vessels we work with operate in international waters, where green transition is required due to global regulatory requirements," he explains.

"We haven't yet seen any direct impact but continuously consider what the changes might mean. An effect we're already seeing from the security situation in both the US and Europe is increased investments in navies and coast guards."

Bäck is candid that amidst the unsettling geopolitics in the world right now, his firm will be amongst those that benefits from the related rise in demand for naval technologies.

"Yes, absolutely. We're already delivering to NATO, where there are high security requirements and demands for reliability."