Finnish start-up CEO expects extreme growth

Finnish airship surveillance start-up Kelluu expects its revenue to grow significantly this year after reporting €1.1 million in revenue in 2025.

- This year is going to be multiples of that. We have a quite ambitious target for this year, says co-founder and CEO Janne Hietala in an interview with Defence Nordic

The growth outlook follows a €15 million Series A funding round led by the NATO Innovation Fund, marking the fund’s first investment in a Finnish company.

Prior to the round, Kelluu had raised around €7.5 million in equity alongside government grants, bringing total funding to roughly €10 million.

- Obviously this gives resources and puts us into a faster growth trajectory all in all, Hietala says.

Scaling up

Kelluu operates hydrogen-powered airships for persistent monitoring of low-altitude airspace, offering surveillance as a service rather than selling the systems outright.

This “capability-as-a-service” model allows customers - including governments and defence organisations - to access continuous monitoring without owning or operating the platforms themselves.

According to Hietala, the new capital will be used to expand this model by increasing operational capacity, extending coverage and entering new markets.

It’s always a function of how much do we invest in the growth

Janne Hietala, CEO at Kelluu

The company is already operating across large areas in the Nordic region and is now looking to scale that footprint internationally.

Beyond geographic expansion, a central focus is scaling the underlying platform to a level where it can operate reliably at larger volumes.

Hietala points to operational maturity as a key milestone, highlighting the need to significantly increase flight hours as part of industrialising the technology.

The company is working towards a benchmark of around 10,000 flight hours, which he describes as necessary to achieve the level of reliability and performance required for broader deployment.

At the same time, Kelluu is continuing to develop its sensing capabilities, including integrating additional sensor technologies through partnerships.

Investing in data and AI capabilities

Alongside its core operations, Kelluu is beginning to invest in a dedicated AI unit as part of its longer-term dual-use strategy.

- Our AI lab is going to be working on foundation models for the physical world, Hietala says.

The ambition is to build capabilities that extend beyond surveillance, using data collected from its platforms to support applications related to environmental monitoring and critical infrastructure.

We have a quite ambitious target for this year

Janne Hietala, CEO at Kelluu

Kelluu is targeting profitability within the next one to two years, but the timeline will depend on how aggressively the company continues to invest in expansion.

- It’s always a function of how much do we invest in the growth, Hietala says.

With fresh capital in place and operations expanding, the company is now balancing rapid growth with the path towards financial sustainability.