Finland a common thread of investments by Nvidia

Varjo in November reported that the US chipmaker, one of the world’s largest companies by market cap, has picked up a minority stake in it with an undisclosed contribution to a newly concluded funding round. The supplementary round was linked to the commercial launch of Varjo’s Teleport, a subscription service enabling anyone with a smartphone to produce high-resolution 3D scans of spaces.

The service was launched last month after a closed beta phase, during which testers were able to scan spaces in only 5–10 minutes, significantly faster than the hours or days required by standard photogrammetry methods.

Patrick Wyatt, chief product officer at Varjo, described Teleport as a visually unrivalled publicly available 3D scanning solution – “the only one able to bring digital twins directly into virtual reality”.

“This service will change the way professionals work, making it easier than ever to capture, share and analyse real-world places,” he stated.

Teleport is powered by generative models trained on the graphics performance units (GPUs) of Nvidia. Varjo and Nvidia have for years collaborated closely on product development, including on GPUs.

“On Nvidia’s accelerated computing platform, we can push the boundaries of what’s possible in immersive technology, delivering unparalleled experiences for the most demanding industrial users as they bring their workflows into virtual environments,” commented Timo Toikkanen, CEO of Varjo.

According to Varjo, 19 of the 20 largest defence and aerospace companies in the world presently use its solutions. Its supplementary funding round also attracted investments from Beyond Capital and Nishikawa Communications.

Nvidia also contributed to a 700-million-dollar equity round by Nebius, a Dutch company that provides computing power and software platforms for artificial intelligence development. Nebius operates its only fully owned data centre – one of the most advanced data centres in Europe – in Mäntsälä, Finland.

Also contributing to the round were Accel Partners and Orbis Investments. The company said the financing will be used to accelerate the roll-out of its full-stack artificial intelligence infrastructure.

The Amsterdam-domiciled company was established as Yandex, the leading internet search engine in Russia, had to wind down its operations in the West following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Its shares began trading on Nasdaq in October.