- RunwayVC, formerly known as RunwayFBU, has raised the first €40 million for its second fund.
- The first two investments made by Fund II were in Minerva, a company concentrating on humanoid robotics, and HIVE, a firm specialising in autonomy technology.
- The fund set up by Røkke, which Aker has single-handedly supported since 2021, is now, for the first time, accepting investment from people other than itself.
RunwayVC, formerly known as RunwayFBU, has now completed a first closing of €40 million for its second fund, focusing on companies at the pre-seed and Series A stages in industrial AI, software, robotics, automation, and autonomous systems.
From family fund to institutional capital
Founded in Oslo in 2021 by Tor Bækkelund and Kjell Inge Røkke, who is the billionaire chairman of Aker, the fund operates from the Aker Tech House in Fornebu. When the fund was launched with 300 million Norwegian kroner, Aker was the only backer.
“We are in the middle of a technology shift in industry, which will lead to the next generation of global technology companies. Over the past five years, we have built a strong position close to where that shift is happening. With Fund II, we can back even more strongly the companies that will define it,” said Bækkelund.
Speaking to Tech Funding News, Bækkelund explains that it had always been their intention to attract other LPs, but beginning with a single backer enabled them to act quickly rather than spending a long time raising funds.
The success of Fund I showed that “our focus and our methods and our ambitions would fly”, as it prompted other industrial companies to seek to join, says Bækkelund.
The second fund attracts new limited partners, including Halliburton, Aker BP, Aker Solutions, KLP, Investinor, and several Norwegian industrial families, with Aker remaining the principal investor.
Jeff Miller, chairman, president, and CEO of Halliburton, stated, “We believe AI, automation, and software will drive future operational efficiency. We look forward to participating in solutions for complex, high-demand environments with RunwayVC.”
Øyvind Eriksen, president and CEO of Aker, added, “AI, robotics and software are changing how industry operates. Through companies such as Cognite and Nscale, we have seen how new technology creates opportunities and value when combined with deep industrial expertise. RunwayVC connects venture capital with Norwegian industry. The experience from Fund I demonstrates the value of this model, and we look forward to continuing the strategy through Fund II alongside a broader group of industrial and financial investors”
Connectivity, intelligence, and autonomy
Sagar Chandna, RunwayVC’s senior partner and chief technology officer, states that the firm’s investment approach consists of three elements: achieving connectivity through sensors and IoT technology; an intelligence layer to manage these systems; and employing robotics and autonomy to take action.
He adds that the fund seeks out founders with deep domain expertise who have lived through the problem space in the industry, rather than selecting those from outside the sector.
The investment team at RunwayVC consists of five members and raises the first rounds of funding, ranging from €500,000 to €1 million, with subsequent funding arranged separately. About 70% of its investments are in Norway and the Nordic countries, with the remainder distributed throughout Europe, including companies such as WSense and Telgea.
Since 2022, RunwayVC has made 24 investments through Fund I, carried out 23 follow-on investments, and achieved two exits, although only one is listed on its website. The companies in the portfolio have raised more than two billion kroner from external investors. Fund II is intended to result in about 20 investments over three to five years.
Chandna identifies the closest equivalents among the Nordic countries and compares RunwayVC’s structure to Germany’s HV, an early investor in Neura Robotics.
The LP is also the customer
The model used by RunwayVC includes limited partners such as Halliburton, Aker BP, and Aker Solutions, which are also potential customers of companies in its portfolio. This method is akin to that of corporate venture firms such as Emerald Technology Ventures, which, in March 2026, launched a $62 million physical-AI fund with Japan’s DIC.
RunwayVC is structured as an independent VC fund rather than a family office or corporate venture arm. While Aker has been a strategic industrial anchor since the fund’s founding, Aker ASA is a publicly listed industrial investment company, not a family office, and Fund II has broadened its LP base to include public industrial companies alongside institutional investors.
The first two investments made by Fund II illustrate RunwayVC’s approach in practice. Minerva Humanoids is developing advanced humanoid robots for use in hazardous industrial environments, its team having previously worked at Tesla, Boston Dynamics, and MIT.
HIVE, founded in Kristiansand in 2020 and now headquartered in London, offers what it calls autonomy-as-a-service, converting existing machines into self-driving ones. The company carried out a separate $15 million funding round, which was reported in July 2026, and is already working with Volvo Maskin and Telenor.
In the first half of 2026, global venture funding for physical AI companies amounted to $47.4 billion, which is almost four times the amount recorded in the second half of 2025. Chandna believes that Europe’s advantage lies in developing the core technology for humanoid robots, not merely in producing the robots themselves, as is evident at BMW’s plant in Leipzig, where humanoid robots from Figure AI and Hexagon are being tested.
Rather than restricting deal flow to a single network, the broader industrial LP base gives portfolio companies access to a wider set of industrial relationships, expertise and potential commercial opportunities.
