Encube with support from investors such as Kinnevik, Inventure and Promus Ventures helps Encube industrial companies to cut lead times, avoid costly design mistakes and bring their products to market faster. With its platform, the company wants to revolutionize hardware development while strengthening Europe's industrial competitiveness by combining AI and engineering in a new digital ecosystem.
Encube has now secured SEK 215 million in new financing to expand in Europe and accelerate the development of its AI-powered platform. The solution has already been tested by global industrial companies such as Volvo Group, Beyond Gravity and Scania, and enables development teams to identify early on which design choices can create manufacturing problems – and how to avoid them. The result: shorter lead times, lower production costs and more innovation opportunities.
A new era for hardware development
“Developing hardware is about balancing how a product should work, look and what it should cost to manufacture. In Europe, we are strong in the first two, but our manufacturing expertise is disappearing. We founded Encube to change that,” says Hugo Nordell, CEO and co-founder of Encube.
Ralf Usinger, Global Head of Engineering Applications at Beyond Gravity, describes Encube as a major step forward:
“Encube is one of the most significant advances in hardware development I have seen in over 30 years. The software's ease of use and speed of simulations is a huge step forward.”
Industry in change
The manufacturing industry is facing three major structural shifts:
- Geopolitical changes which demands increased European independence.
- Lack of skills when an entire generation of experienced engineers retires.
- Stricter environmental requirements which drives the need for sustainable production and better decision-making.
At the same time, decades of knowledge are being lost as older employees leave the industry, making solutions like Encube extra important.
“We are facing a generational shift in our manufacturing, and it is difficult to replace the experience that will soon be lost. Encube enables us to manage that risk before it is too late,” says Jonas Hellman Peterson, Head of Sales Engineering, Birn Group.
AI and digital intelligence in product development
The EU's new environmental legislation and increased requirements for climate reporting place higher demands on both transparency and efficiency in manufacturing processes. Encube makes it possible to integrate sustainability and cost control already in the design phase.
Research shows that up to 80 % of production costs are determined at the design stage – long before manufacturing starts. Using AI, Encube can simulate thousands of possible scenarios and quickly determine which design decisions are at risk of being expensive or environmentally inefficient.
“We are completely dependent on external parties when we manufacture our robots. With Encube, it becomes much easier to identify and reduce risks together with both suppliers and customers early in product development,” says Mattias Vanberg, Director of Development, Cognibotics.
Behind Encube
Behind the company stands Hugo Nordell, former top manager at Sandvik and Aker, together with Johnny Bigert, AI veteran from Skype and KlarnaSince its inception in 2021, their vision has been to help engineering companies make better design decisions sooner – using AI and real-time data.
Encube's platform consists of two main parts:
- A collaboration tools where teams can work together on design choices directly in the browser.
- A AI-powered analysis engine which automatically identifies risks, cost drivers and manufacturing problems before production even starts.
The results from pilot projects have been clear:
The launch time has halved, production costs reduced by 20–30 %, and productivity has doubled.
A European investment for the future
“AI is driving a major shift in product development. Encube is creating the conditions for this shift by integrating manufacturing intelligence directly into product development,” says Tatiana Shalalvand, Investment Director, Kinnevik.
The new funding of SEK 215 million will be used to grow in the European market, deepen strategic partnerships and develop new AI features for hardware development.
“We are convinced that Encube has the potential to do for the industry what Figma did for web design – to fundamentally change how hardware is developed,” says Adrian Arnsvik Bjurefalcon, Principal, Inventure.
Encube is thus at the center of a decisive shift – towards a smarter, more sustainable and competitive Europe.
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