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.