RunwayVC Announces Fund II to Back the Next Generation of Industry

RunwayVC, investing in founders shaping industry, led by Tor Bækkelund and the team, has announced the first close of RunwayVC Fund II at NOK 400 million (€40 million). Aker continues as the cornerstone investor, joined by Halliburton, Aker BP and Aker Solutions, institutional investors KLP and Investinor, Norwegian industrial families and a group of experienced technology and finance investors.

Fund II reflects more than an increase in capital. It represents a broader conviction that some of the next major global technology companies will emerge from industrial technology, supported by increasingly favorable conditions for building and scaling them.

The Next Technology Wave is Moving into Industry.

AI has already transformed software, information retrieval, and digital interaction. The next phase is increasingly moving beyond the screen.

AI, data, software, robotics, and autonomous systems are entering factories, energy systems, machines, and critical infrastructure. Physical assets are becoming connected, industrial data is becoming more usable, and software is moving closer to operational decision-making. Machines are also becoming increasingly capable of sensing, deciding, and acting.

This is technology meeting clear industrial demand. Companies face growing pressure to improve productivity and safety, reduce downtime, address workforce constraints, and operate more efficiently. At the same time, advances in AI, robotics, and automation are making these challenges increasingly solvable in real-world environments.

That convergence is creating a significant opportunity for the next generation of industrial technology companies.

Why the Nordics Can Produce Global Industrial Technology Leaders.

The Nordics are not the world’s largest technology market, but they offer something more valuable for industrial technology: access to sophisticated industrial environments where new technologies can be tested and validated.

Norway combines deep engineering expertise with globally competitive industries across energy, maritime, offshore, manufacturing, and critical infrastructure. These sectors demand technology that works safely and reliably in real-world conditions, not just in demonstrations.

For early-stage industrial technology companies, that creates a powerful advantage. Demanding customers can expose weaknesses quickly, while technologies that prove themselves in these environments can build technical credibility, commercial references, and expertise that translate globally.

The Nordics offer a strong environment for building and validating industrial technology. The ambition, however, needs to extend far beyond the region.

Fund I Provided a Model to Build From.

Launched in 2022, Fund I was built around the intersection of technology and industry.

Since then, the fund has invested in 24 companies, completed 23 follow-on investments, and achieved two exits. Collectively, Fund I portfolio companies have raised more than NOK 2 billion in external capital.

More important than the activity itself are the lessons from the portfolio: industrial access creates the most value when embedded in the investment process rather than added after an investment.

It can help identify the problems industry genuinely needs solved, strengthen technical and commercial validation before investment, and connect founders with operators, technical experts, customers, pilots, and commercial opportunities.

That approach has played out across the portfolio. OTee’s engagement with Aker BP helped establish its first commercial agreement in oil and gas. AirHub is working with Aker Solutions to develop commercial opportunities for its drone technology. WSense has expanded its engagement across technical, research, and commercial environments within Aker BP. Sonair has benefited from support across company building, fundraising, and industrial positioning.

Different companies and technologies, but the same underlying principle: industrial access can become a competitive advantage when embedded directly into the investment model.

Fund II Takes the Model Further.

Fund II provides greater capacity to back companies from pre-seed through Series A and continue supporting high-potential companies as they scale.

The fund plans to make approximately 20 investments over the next three to five years, primarily across Norway and the Nordics, alongside selected investments elsewhere in Europe and the US.

The investment thesis spans three connected areas:

1. Connectivity and IoT: Connecting machines, sensors, assets, and industrial data.

2. Industrial Intelligence and Orchestration: Turning data into understanding, decisions, control, and coordinated action.

3. Robotics and Automation: Bringing that intelligence into the physical world.

The boundaries between these areas are becoming increasingly blurred, creating opportunities at their intersection. Connect. Understand. Act.

The First Two Investments Show Where the Thesis is Heading.

Fund II’s first two investments illustrate the opportunity across both new and existing industrial systems.

Minerva Humanoids is developing rugged humanoid robots for dangerous and demanding industrial operations. The team brings experience from Tesla, Boston Dynamics, and MIT, with General Catalyst and Long Journey also participating in the investment. The company has already been introduced to senior leaders at Aker BP, providing access to expertise around the industrial environments and use cases being targeted.

Minerva represents one side of the opportunity: developing entirely new machines capable of performing work that remains too hazardous or difficult for conventional automation.

HIVE Autonomy approaches the opportunity from another direction, developing a Physical AI platform that makes existing industrial machinery autonomous. Its technology is already deployed at industrial sites across Scandinavia.

Industry has an enormous installed base of expensive machinery that will not simply be replaced as AI advances. Making these existing assets increasingly intelligent and autonomous represents a major opportunity in its own right.

One company is building a new class of machine. The other is bringing autonomy to machines already in operation. Both point toward the same future: intelligence moving deeper into physical industry.

An Investor Base that Reflects the Strategy.

Fund II expands the breadth of the ecosystem around RunwayVC. Aker remains the cornerstone investor, while the LP base now includes Halliburton, Aker BP, and Aker Solutions, alongside institutional investors KLP and Investinor, industrial families, and experienced technology and finance investors.

Several LPs are themselves industrial operators and users of the technologies targeted by the fund. Their participation provides access to industrial expertise, market insight, and operating environments across a broader range of industries.

For founders, this expands the network surrounding the fund. For the investment team, it provides a closer view of how industrial needs are evolving.

Investment decisions remain with the RunwayVC investment team. The broader LP base provides insight and access, not control.

What Comes Next.

Fund II launches as the distinction between software and physical industry becomes increasingly blurred.

AI is moving toward action. Industrial software is moving closer to control. Robotics is becoming more software-defined. Machines are becoming increasingly autonomous, while the infrastructure connecting these systems continues to improve.

There will be plenty of hype around Industrial AI and Physical AI. Technology is not compelling simply because it carries either label.

The focus is on founders who understand industrial problems deeply, technology that delivers meaningful improvements over existing processes, evidence of performance in demanding real-world environments, and the ambition to build globally.

Industrial access is embedded in the investment model because these questions are difficult to answer from a boardroom alone. Fund II provides greater capacity to apply that model at an earlier stage and across a broader set of opportunities.

The next generation of industry is already being built.

The strategy is to back it early.

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