STOCKHOLM – JUNE 6, 2023. Founded in 2022 to power a digital Europe, today evroc presents its plans to build Europe’s first secure, sovereign, and sustainable hyperscale cloud, putting an end to the foreign dominance of the European cloud market.
Backed by global technology investor EQT Ventures and impact investor Norrsken VC, evroc recently closed a seed funding round to build its launch team. The company now plans to raise and invest €3 billion over the next couple of years to develop and operate two hyperscale data centers – one in Northern Europe and one in Southern Europe. By 2028, evroc’s aims to establish eight hyperscale data centers, as well as three software development hubs, across the continent, employing over 3,000 people in total.
“The lack of home-grown hyperscale cloud providers poses a serious challenge for Europe. Not only because our citizens’ data is placed under foreign ownership by companies operating under laws that conflict with European privacy legislation. It is also a real threat to our long-term competitiveness in a digital world where others are advancing much faster. Europe’s digital economy must be built on a European foundation,” says Mattias Åström, founder and CEO, evroc.
Cloud services play a key role in critical digital infrastructure. Between 2017 and 2022, the European cloud market grew five-fold. During the same time, the market share of European cloud players fell from 27% to 13%.
A competitive European hyperscale cloud is critical to enable the continent’s digital economy, keeping investments, job creation, technology development and intellectual property rights within its borders. It will also give Europe digital sovereignty that is compliant with European privacy legislation, settling a long standing problem.
“evroc has spotted an exciting opportunity to make Europe a leader in cloud technologies by bringing together the continent’s brightest minds, ambitious thinkers, and experienced entrepreneurs. We believe the next generation of European tech companies will be built on evroc’s cloud services,” says Ted Persson, Partner at EQT Ventures.
Data centers have until now had a significant environmental footprint, consuming about three percent of the global electricity supply, and accounting for two percent of global greenhouse gas emissions.
evroc will build the world’s cleanest cloud by leveraging next-generation energy-efficient technologies to maximize its sustainability impact, including a unique and proprietary eco load balancer solution. The eco load balancer enables data to flow seamlessly and securely between evroc’s data centers based on where renewable energy is most readily available and affordable.
“The data center industry is on par with the airline industry in terms of greenhouse gas emissions. Data processing will continue to grow substantially over the coming decades, causing significant emissions and damage to our climate, unless we change direction. evroc’s holistic strategy for clean energy usage, combined with the implementation of state-of-the-art energy efficiency technology, could set the standard for the entire industry,” says Tove Larsson, Partner at Norrsken VC.
This year evroc is piloting its software stack together with selected key customers across government, military, financial services and automotive sectors. evroc’s offering includes a full suite of cloud services, integration to third party applications and a best-in-class developer experience.
In 2024, evroc will establish a pilot center in the Stockholm region, while initiating a site selection process to determine the location of the first two European hyperscale centers and additional software development hubs.
“Status quo is not an option for Europe. We want to build a better cloud that is secure, sustainable, and sovereign, and with that, power Europe’s digital economy,” says Mattias Åström.
About evroc
Founded to power a digital Europe, evroc is building a secure, sovereign, and sustainable hyperscale cloud with best-in-class services and developer experience. The company is headquartered in Stockholm, Sweden, with a development office in Sophia-Antipolis, France. By 2028, evroc will operate eight hyperscale data centers and three software development hubs across Europe.
The CEO and founder, Mattias Åström, spent more than a decade building technology companies in the United States and is now returning to his native Sweden. Prior to evroc, Mattias founded five businesses, with energy efficiency at the core, that were acquired by Apple, Nokia, Murata and Schneider Electric.