Analysis
Verda, the Helsinki-based AI cloud infrastructure company formerly known as DataCrunch, raised $189 million in a round led by Emergence Capital, with participation from MUFG Innovation Partners, Super Micro Computer, Varma Mutual Pension Insurance and Lifeline Ventures, and said it is now valued at more than $1 billion, according to Bloomberg and Tech Funding News.
From DataCrunch To Unicorn
Verda now serves customers in more than 50 countries and reached a $165 million annualized revenue run rate in July 2026, with total disclosed funding -- across equity and debt -- now topping $450 million. The GPU cloud, or "neocloud," category is increasingly crowded, with CoreWeave, Lambda, Crusoe, Together AI and Nebius all competing for the same constrained pool of Nvidia chip allocation.
Verda's pitch is a European-headquartered alternative at a moment when EU customers are increasingly weighing data-sovereignty requirements alongside raw price and performance -- one of several AI infrastructure raises this week, alongside Snorkel AI's Series E, that shows capital still flowing hard into the AI stack's picks-and-shovels layer.
A $189 million round on a $1 billion-plus valuation with real, disclosed revenue behind it is a meaningfully different risk profile than neoclouds still selling primarily against committed future capacity. Verda's next real test is less about fundraising and more about supply: it is now competing with far larger, better-capitalized US neoclouds for the same limited Nvidia GPU allocation and the power contracts needed to run it, a constraint that no funding round on its own resolves.
Verda's rebrand from DataCrunch also reflects a broader trend among 2023-era GPU rental startups: as the category matured and hyperscaler-scale competitors like CoreWeave went public, smaller neoclouds have increasingly repositioned around vertical specialization -- in Verda's case, European data residency and renewable-powered Nordic data centers -- rather than competing purely on raw GPU price against much larger US rivals.