Sarsia bets EUR 3.7M that the cheapest low-carbon concrete is the concrete already standing

Birdsview, a Bergen company that images concrete with ground-penetrating radar and LiDAR instead of drilling into it, has raised EUR 3.7 million, about NOK 40.5 million, in a round led by the Norwegian fund Sarsia ^[1]. The notable part is the thesis rather than the size: Sarsia partner Jon-Kaare Hansen frames the investment around new concrete being a major source of greenhouse gas emissions, and preserving existing buildings on the basis of a deep understanding of their condition ^[17][22].

The cap table is crowded for the cheque. Butterfly Ventures, Proptechfonden, Kiilto Ventures, Nordic Makers and Momentum also invested ^[2], existing backers Eviny Ventures and Farvatn Venture returned, and angels include Ardoq's Erik Bakstad, serial founder Gunnar Hvammen and Norse Partners founder Herman Flinder ^[3]. That is at least eleven named participants, an average under EUR 340,000 each if the money were split evenly ^[24]. The source itself describes the lead two ways, as Sarsia alone and as Sarsia plus five Nordic funds ^[27].

The product exists because most concrete infrastructure was never built with a way to check its condition later, leaving engineers to drill or guess ^[23]. Birdsview's algorithms turn sensor data into 3D models showing rebar position, thickness, cracks, voids and corrosion without damaging the structure, and export into digital building models rather than a PDF someone retypes ^[7]. The company launched its first concrete product in January 2025 and now runs 14 employees across Bergen and Oslo ^[8][4]. It started as a sensor for detecting internal rot in wooden utility poles, founded in Trondheim by Olav Skogen and Simen Husoy as NTNU engineering students, and picked up one of Norway's largest grid operators as a user before the pivot to concrete ^[5][6].

On traction, read carefully. The article says customers in nine countries signed up within weeks of direct pre-sales starting in March 2026 ^[9]; CEO Olav Skogen's own quote in the same piece says eight countries ^[10]. Those cannot both be right ^[11]. More than 100 structures have been scanned since launch ^[12], and the named client roster runs to Vinci, Bouygues Construction, EllisDon, Sweco, Asplan Viak and Ramboll ^[20], which is a serious list of buyers for a 14-person firm.

The value case is concrete in both senses. A Bergen contractor mapped rebar under a basement and avoided tearing up the floor, saving roughly NOK 200,000 and two weeks ^[13]. At that ticket, the entire round is worth about 203 such jobs ^[14], which tells you the unit is small and the volume has to be large. The stated market supports that: roughly USD 1.92 billion in 2026 growing to USD 3.84 billion by 2035, quoted at an 8.5 percent CAGR ^[15]. Those endpoints are an exact doubling over nine years, which is 8.0 percent compounded, not 8.5 ^[16]. Round the projection down accordingly.

Positioning is the part worth respecting. Nordic and German concrete money has mostly gone into chemistry and workflow: Carbonaide raised the same EUR 3.7 million to cure concrete with captured CO2, alcemy uses AI to cut cement production emissions, and Conxai took EUR 5 million for agentic AI across construction workflows ^[18]. Birdsview is instead attacking manual scanning and competing with service providers such as GPRS ^[19]. Displacing a labour line item is a slower story than reinventing cement, and a much easier sale.

Capital is earmarked for commercial, industrial and international scaling ^[21].