The largest Japanese-backed European VC firm NordicNinja has led a €6.5 million funding round into VSParticle, a company that accelerates the development of advanced materials. The investment marks NordicNinja’s strategic expansion into the Netherlands.

The funding round, which also includes Plural Platform, brings the total raised capital to $23.5 million, allowing VSParticle to scale up production and reach new markets, including Japan and industrial customers.

About VSParticle

  • VSP, founded in 2014, is a technology company based on research by materials scientists at TU Delft. Co-founder and CEO Aaike van Vugt first worked on the technology as a Master's student, collaborating with professor Andreas Schmidt-Ott, co-founder and CTO Tobias Pfeiffer, and co-founder and COO Tobias Coppejans.

  • According to the founders, the company's technology is enabling global researchers and commercial R&D teams to develop new materials for green hydrogen production and carbon-intensive industries. The team’s vision includes developing innovative solutions for creating a vast amount of nanomaterials that don’t exist yet. 

  • VSParticle's flagship product is the VSP-P1 Nanoprinter, which has been shipped to various teams in Asia, the Middle East, Europe, and North America, accelerating material development for innovative industrial solutions. VSP printers are being used to create new material combinations for PTLs, resulting in 10x savings in scarce metals and faster, cheaper product introduction expected by 2027.

Investment details

  • NordicNinja VC, established in 2019, is looking for the top teams in Northern Europe that are making a positive impact on a digital and sustainable society. With a team of dedicated founders and operators, NordicNinja VC focuses on issues that the world needs to address, such as transport, healthcare, and a wide range of digital infrastructure, in order to reduce the enormous carbon footprint. 

  • Its portfolio consists of numerous worldwide known names, such as Bolt, Arbonics, Onego and others. Following this investment, the VC firm is open to aiding companies that are interested in learning their technology to supercharge material discovery.

“VSParticle has tremendous potential to revolutionise the discovery and production of new high-performing materials. These new materials will help in solving the many challenges that people are facing across de-carbonization and the use of precious metals. NordicNinja, as the largest Japanese fund in Europe, believes that given Japan’s history in manufacturing, Japan represents a huge potential market for VSParticle,” Taiga Ueta, Senior Associate at NordicNinja, commented on the current deal.

  • Plural Platform is an Estonian investment firm investing serious time and early stage venture capital in a new wave of world leading tech from Europe. In July 2023, Plural Platform had already co-led a round for VSP, providing the startup with €14,5 million to advance its production of software-defined materials.

The funding is aimed at helping VSParticle find the solutions to various global challenges, including decarbonizing society, with the help of its development of next-generation materials.