Evroc, a Swedish start-up, has announced its plans to launch a pan-European cloud platform that could challenge Silicon Valley’s offerings. The company was only founded last year and already has backing from EGT Ventures and Norrsken VC and aims to raise $3.2bn. The intention is to use the money to build two new data centres in the next two years, 8 bitbarns by 2028, 3 software development hubs and hire 3000 employees.
Fighting The Monopoly
They want to end “foreign dominance of the European cloud market” with their “secure, sovereign, and sustainable hyperscale cloud”. According to Evroc, the cloud market grew by 5x between 2017 and 2022, meanwhile Europe’s share of the industry fell from 27% to 13%. It’ll be a challenge but it’s evident there is a need for a company like them.
As we know, the cloud market is dominated by only a few major players. Of course, attempts are being made to reduce the industry’s tendency towards building monopolies. If Evroc is a success, it could be an antidote to this.
Mattias Åström, Founder and CEO of Evroc, was formerly in charge of C3 Technologies, Nordnav and Llevo, which was taken over by Schneider Electric. He explains in a statement the need for European cloud providers in order to ensure European users are being provided with services in line with EU privacy legislation. Also highlighting the need to maintain the competitiveness of European industry. He writes..
“The lack of home-grown hyperscale cloud providers poses a serious challenge for Europe”
Evroc – The World’s Cleanest Cloud
Not only is Evroc entering the fight for the little guy, it wants to prioritise sustainability, hoping to become “the world’s cleanest cloud”. They will use an eco load balancer which will distribute data based upon where renewable energy is most available. Some think these credentials could be strong enough to boost the ESG scores of companies who use Evroc.
Despite being an incredibly young startup, those involved aren’t holding back when espousing its revolutionary potential. Tove Larsson, partner at Norrsken VC said..
“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”
It is going to be a huge challenge for a completely new company to take on the giants of AWS, Google and Microsoft but we can’t begrudge them for trying! Do you think Evroc could be a contender?
