Startups Magazine
Now Reading
Embedl raises €5.5M to boost AI efficiency in embedded defence, automotive, and robotics
Startups Magazine

Subscribe today

Startups Magazine

Embedl raises €5.5M to boost AI efficiency in embedded defence, automotive, and robotics

by
June 18, 2025

Anna Wood is the Editor of Startups Magazine. She joined…

Swedish deeptech company Embedl has raised €5.5 million in a pre-series A funding round from Chalmers Ventures, Fairpoint Capital, SEB Greentech, Spintop Ventures,  and STOAF.

After spinning out from Chalmers University of Technology, and kicking off commercial operations in 2022, Embedl has helped innovative startups and some of the world’s largest corporates, such as Kodiak Robotics and Bosch to optimise their products’ AI inference efficiency. With the new funding, Embedl will accelerate the commercialisation and launch of its SaaS platform, the Embedl Hub.

“The world needs to make AI more energy efficient, fast. While the applications and usage of AI continue to skyrocket, we can’t increase energy consumption at the same level. Our solution will also help bring robotics and autonomous vehicles to the market faster, as we can help optimise the hardware’s energy efficiency while assuring the highest quality data being transferred instantly. We are grateful for the new and existing investors for their support,” says Hans Salomonsson, CEO and Co-Founder of Embedl.

Inference of AI models surpassed AI training costs in 2024 and is still projected to continue increasing. As more and more original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) add AI features to their products, the need to run inference on low-energy and cost-efficient devices in real-time is increasing. Companies are looking for solutions that ensure their AI inference works seamlessly, even without cloud support.

Embedl’s proprietary technology enables companies from the defence, automotive, and robotics sectors to transfer their deep learning models, convolutional neural networks (CNNs), and transformer models into their hardware devices. Embedl’s technology can reduce the energy consumption up to 83%, and manufacturers can halve the cost of their hardware by optimising their models.

“Having the ability to deeply inspect the cognitive blocks of our AI models, perform hardware-aware optimisation, benchmark various layers, and deploy models through seamless hardware abstraction is truly game-changing,” said Shubham Shrivastava, Head of Machine Learning at Kodiak.

For example, the defence industry relies on highly secure and efficient technologies to maintain operational superiority and readiness. The devices used need to have optimal battery life, and sensitive information cannot always be sent to the cloud for analysis.

Embedl’s Model Optimization SDK helps AI systems in defence run efficiently on existing hardware, avoiding costly upgrades. It offers tools to prune, quantise, and compress deep learning models, reducing size and speeding up inference. Its modular design lets developers tailor components for specific needs and apply their domain knowledge. Built-in visualisation tools make it easy to track model changes during optimisation.

The automotive industry has been at the forefront in developing cutting-edge safety-critical functions, which require the utilisation of cost-efficient hardware. In order to remain profitable and competitive, companies are constantly seeking methods of reducing manufacturing costs. Embedl’s Edge AI tools can effortlessly deploy generative AI models across multiple hardware platforms.

See Also
When global labour market data is released, headlines tend to fixate on a single metric: unemployment. This year is no different. According to the latest figures from the United Nations and the International Labour Organisation, global unemployment remains relatively stable at just under five per cent. At face value, this suggests a labour market that is holding firm despite economic uncertainty, geopolitical instability and technological upheaval. In reality, it masks a serious and underreported problem: the true global jobs crisis is not a lack of work, but the growing scale of informal work. More than 2.1 billion people worldwide are employed in the informal economy, including misclassified workers operating outside effective regulatory coverage, where employment is typically unregistered, contracts are absent or unenforced, and access to labour rights and social protections is limited or non-existent. That represents a large portion of the global workforce. If unemployment reveals how many people cannot find work, informality shows how many are working without protection or long-term opportunity. Informal work is often associated with developing economies or unregulated sectors. However, this form of work is increasingly occurring within developed economies and regulated sectors, hidden within otherwise legitimate, fast-growing small and medium-sized enterprises – and this is often unintentional. For both businesses operating solely in domestic markets and those that have expanded abroad, adopting new workforce models and attempting to respond to rapid technological change, the crisis of informality is emerging in three key areas. The first is worker misclassification. Individuals are engaged as independent contractors but operate in practice like employees – working fulltime, at set hours, for years at a time. This is particularly prevalent in gig and platform-based roles, where algorithms determine pay, hours and performance without considering employment rights. Gig and platform work often presents as flexible and empowering, however, in practice, many platforms exercise employer-like control over payment, performance management, hours, and length of engagement, while explicitly avoiding employer obligations such as tax filings and the provision of statutory benefits like annual leave and healthcare. The result is a growing cohort of workers who fall between legal categories, carrying the risks of self-employment without the autonomy or protections that should accompany this mode of work. The second area is cross-border remote work, where informality can inadvertently arise. With post-COVID remote working models here to stay, companies are directly hiring overseas talent, assuming that because the worker is not based in the company’s home country, local employment laws do not apply. Where employment is not properly registered (whether by the employer and/or employee), local labour law is not applied, or social security obligations are misunderstood or ignored, these arrangements can slip into a form of modern informality, even where the relationship appears to be formal on the surface. This is often the point at which organisations begin to seek external guidance. In many cases, neither party fully understands the legal implications of the arrangement, which leaves both employer and worker exposed. We frequently see organisations approach us when a specific issue surfaces, such as payroll inconsistencies, questions around benefits entitlement, or concerns raised by the workers themselves, including registration process failures. Business leaders should also be aware that permanent establishment risk can arise if a remote employee is deemed to represent the company locally, which can trigger corporate tax obligations. Social security errors can happen when contributions are not made correctly in either jurisdiction, leaving workers without coverage and employers facing backdated liabilities. Meanwhile, employment law conflicts can emerge when contracts fail to meet the requirements of the host country regarding notice periods, benefits or termination rights. The third driver of informality is structural. These arrangements are becoming more common as artificial intelligence and evolving workforce models outpace regulation. Businesses are innovating at speed, but legal frameworks are struggling to keep pace. The UK’s Employment Rights Act offers a clear case study of the direction of travel. Worker protections are expanding, classification rules are tightening and enforcement is becoming more coordinated across agencies. Informal arrangements that once sat in legal grey areas are moving firmly into view and what was previously tolerated is falling under scrutiny. The challenge is that informality is rarely a deliberate choice. For many growing organisations, it becomes the default because compliant pathways are complicated and difficult to navigate alone, particularly across multiple jurisdictions. Legal advice, payroll, tax, HR, and immigration compliance are often siloed, leaving gaps that businesses may not even realise exist until a problem arises. For instance, digital nomad visas are often viewed as providing holders with wholly compliant right to work status, however employers may not realise that this is not always the case and contracts may not reflect the correct legal status or entitlements. Addressing informality requires a change in how we think about employment at a global level and recognising that flexibility and compliance are not mutually exclusive. Businesses need models that allow them to access global talent quickly while ensuring workers are properly employed and protected under local law. As attention remains fixed on unemployment figures, informality continues to expand beneath the surface. It is this hidden cohort of workers, contributing economically without security or rights, that represents the real crisis in the global labour market. Solving it will require coordinated action from policymakers and businesses alike, and a commitment to building workforce models that are not only innovative, but sustainable and fair.
Neupulse raises £3 million for delivery of neurotherapeutic technology

“This funding is a sign that Chalmers has the technical expertise to build great AI solutions. We at Chalmers Ventures are proud to continue backing our portfolio companies that deliver, and we expect great things from Embedl, in addition to the impressive achievements they have already made in such a short time,” says Jonas Bergman, Investment Director at Chalmers Ventures.

Embedl has been listed as one of the most promising startups by CB Insights’ AI100 list, NyTeknik’s 33 List, and it has won The Grand Prize for Engineering, and IVA’s Smart Industry 2024 award.

The technology is based on research by Professor Devdatt Dubashi, Data Science and AI, Computer Science and Engineering, Chalmers University of Technology.

For more startup news, check out the other articles on the website, and subscribe to the magazine for free. Listen to The Cereal Entrepreneur podcast for more interviews with entrepreneurs and big-hitters in the startup ecosystem.

Startups Magazine

Startups Magazine. All rights reserved. c 2026. Company number is: 06755141

Scroll To Top