MUFG Backs Finnish AI Cloud Firm Verda in USD 189m Unicorn Round
MUFG Innovation Partners (MUIP), the corporate venture capital arm of Japan’s Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group (MUFG), has completed a strategic investment in Finnish cloud infrastructure provider Verda Cloud Oy. The commitment forms part of a broader $189 million financing round that has elevated Verda to unicorn status.
The funding round also drew backing from Emergence Capital, Supermicro, and 6 Degrees Capital (6DC). MUIP executed the transaction through its MUFG Innovation Partners No. 3 Investment Limited Partnership. Cross-border advisory firm Intralink facilitated the deal, having introduced Helsinki-based Verda to MUIP in Tokyo this past June to support the startup’s strategic expansion and investor outreach in Japan.
Founded in 2020 and led by Chief Executive Officer Ruben Bryon, Verda operates an on-demand, vertically integrated AI cloud platform. Its architecture spans physical servers and data center GPU infrastructure to software-level services, including serverless containers, GPU instances, AI clusters, and inference endpoints. Recognized as an NVIDIA Preferred Partner, the company powers its infrastructure entirely with renewable energy and currently employs approximately 250 staff across Europe, the United States, and Asia.
MUIP cited the compounding global demand for generative AI compute resources and the growing push for sovereign AI infrastructure within Europe as core drivers behind the transaction. The venture arm stated that the investment is intended to accelerate Verda’s platform development while laying the groundwork for operational collaborations across the wider MUFG group.
Anssi Harjunpää, Verda’s Chief Business Officer, noted that establishing MUFG as a strategic financial backer materially solidifies the company’s commercial footprint in Japan as it scales operations across the Asia-Pacific region.
Norbert Gehrke
