OSLO, NORWAY, DECEMBER 11th 2025

Oslo-based startup Spoor leverages AI to help wind farms monitor and protect wildlife. Today, the company announced it has secured an €8M Series A investment round led by European energytech VC SET Ventures, with additional participation from EnBW New Ventures, Ørsted Ventures and Superorganism. The company is also backed by major Nordic investors, including Futurum Ventures and the state-owned climate fund Nysnø, both among Spoor’s largest external shareholders and actively supporting the company’s continued growth.

The funding represents a significant step for both Spoor and the wider wind industry. Spoor is scaling from early deployments into long-term post-construction contracts at the same time that biodiversity regulation is becoming a standard rather than an afterthought. With global wind capacity expected to double by 2030, developers face growing pressure to deliver clean energy while meeting strict biodiversity rules, yet many lack accurate, continuous and affordable monitoring tools to do so, until Spoor.

Founded in 2020 by CEO Ask Helseth and CTO Helge Reikerås, Spoor provides real-time bird and bat monitoring software for wind developers and operators. Using its database of over 1 million bird observations, Spoor’s patented computer vision models integrate directly into wind farm control systems to detect, classify and track birds down to the exact species from long range.

Because Spoor uses a small number of off-the-shelf cameras instead of expensive proprietary hardware installations, deployments can be completed faster and at lower cost. With detection ranges far greater than most conventional systems, Spoor’s technology can monitor up to 100 times more airspace per camera, enabling faster and significantly lower-cost deployment across wind farms.

“Our technology has reached a point where it can deliver the accuracy and reliability that wind developers have been waiting for.” Says Spoor CEO, Ask Helseth. “Developers already rely on Spoor as a seamless part of their operations, and this funding allows us to grow our team and deepen our integrations with wind farm control systems. The industry is moving toward 24/7, data-driven intelligent wildlife protection, and we are ready to support that shift at a global scale."

That push for scale comes at a critical time for the wind industry. Today’s 1.3 TW of installed wind capacity is expected to reach 2.1 TW by 2030, representing about 810,000 new turbines. At the same time, at least ten countries have mandated continuous wildlife monitoring for wind farms in the last 5 years. Mitigation and Shutdown on Demand (or SDoD) rules are now standard in markets including Germany, Poland, Spain and much of the USA.

In response, leading developers such as Vattenfall, Ørsted, Iberdrola and NatPower have committed to net positive biodiversity by 2030 and have searched for a solution like Spoor. Indeed, the company has built strong traction already. It holds existing contracts in both pre- and post-construction phases with pivotal customers and partners, including Ørsted, RWE, Vattenfall, TotalEnergies, Equinor, GE and Fugro and plans to use the funding to support further global expansion.

SET Ventures agrees this is a crucial moment. “We already see that Spoor’s digital, software-driven solution is replacing manual processes, as well as expensive radar systems and high-end proprietary (thermal) camera installations that exist today.” Says Julia Padberg, Partner at SET Ventures. “With long implementation cycles and conservative procurement behaviour, trust is difficult to earn in the wind sector, but with contracts across the entire lifecycle of a project with 20+ top-tier customers, it’s clear that Spoor has crossed that threshold. We’re excited to help the company scale even further.”

Spoor’s executive team includes CEO and co-founder Ask Helseth, a product-driven founder, and CTO and co-founder Helge Reikerås, who brings deep expertise in applied AI. The go-to-market function is led by CCO Ralph Natter Berg, with experience scaling Meltwater and Ardoq, while CPO Glen Sykes (formerly Cisco and Cognite) strengthens product and architecture leadership. CFO Erlend Reiten, former CFO of Cermaq, joined in 2024 to support operational scale-up.

The wider 22-person team is set to expand significantly with this funding, with new hires planned across sales, engineering, and deployment to support product development and delivery capacity.

“This marks a new phase for Spoor,” says CEO Ask Helseth. “We’re growing from early-stage projects into long-term partnerships with some of the world’s leading wind developers. Our focus now is scaling responsibly, strengthening the team, deepening our integrations, and delivering on the trust our customers have placed in us.”