TERASi raises €11 million to equip European armed forces with tactical networks without satellites

Swedish startup TERASi has raised €11 million in a round co-led by the NATO Innovation Fund and JOIN Capital. A spinout from Stockholm’s KTH Royal Institute of Technology, the company develops compact millimetre-wave radios that can establish gigabit links without fibre or satellites. Its ambition is less to compete with satellite constellations than to give European armed forces a layer of local connectivity that can be deployed quickly and controlled by the operators themselves.

When fibre has been cut, telecoms relays have become targets and radio frequencies are being jammed, the quality of a weapon is not enough. Information still needs to move: from drone to command post, from sensor to vehicle, and from intelligence source to decision-maker.

Armed forces have learned to operate with this dependency, and satellite constellations have provided a critical answer, particularly in Ukraine. But they have also exposed another vulnerability: essential communications can depend on a private operator, its terms of use, its commercial priorities or a political decision made far from the battlefield.

This is where TERASi comes in. The Swedish company has raised €11 million from the NATO Innovation Fund, JOIN Capital and a group of investors including In-Q-Tel, D3, Navigare Ventures, Almi Invest and Onsight Ventures. The amount is significant for a company still working to industrialise its technology. It also marks the NATO Innovation Fund’s first direct investment in Sweden.

A network that works when infrastructure disappears

TERASi makes compact, portable point-to-point radios designed to establish high-capacity links quickly between two positions. A forward command post, mobile unit, surveillance centre or critical facility can thus obtain a backhaul connection without laying fibre or relying on a satellite terminal.

Its RU1 product, unveiled in 2025, is described as a radio that can be mounted on a tripod, vehicle or drone. TERASi presents it as a tactical communications backbone: a high-capacity link that can carry video feeds, sensor data, local network traffic and command information.

The distinction matters. Despite the loose language often used around technological sovereignty, TERASi is not a “European Starlink”. Starlink provides beyond-line-of-sight coverage, along with the advantages and dependencies of satellite infrastructure. TERASi aims to establish a local link whose two endpoints are directly controlled by its operator. The two approaches may complement each other, but they solve different problems.

That distinction is central to the company’s shift in focus. A spinout from KTH Royal Institute of Technology, TERASi first drew attention for its work on high-frequency radio components, satellite communications and future 5G and 6G networks. Led by James Campion alongside co-founders Adrian Gomez and Bernhard Beuerle, it is now making defence and degraded operating environments its priority market.

Millimetre waves in a field-ready form factor

The technology uses millimetre waves in high-frequency bands, above 60 GHz according to TERASi’s presentations. These frequencies can carry large volumes of data, but they also impose constraints: antennas must be precisely aligned and, in most cases, the transmitter and receiver need a sufficiently clear line of sight.

TERASi relies on highly directional beams. Rather than broadcasting widely, the radio concentrates its signal towards its destination. This reduces exposure, limits interference and makes interception or jamming harder than with a less directional transmission. For deployed forces, the promise is a high-bandwidth network without extensive fixed infrastructure, masts or heavy equipment.

The other part of the system is AirCore, a proprietary technology designed to integrate the radio-frequency components, waveguides and antenna into a single unit. TERASi says this makes its hardware much smaller and lighter than comparable equipment. This is more than an industrial design consideration. In a vehicle, on a drone or with a forward unit, every kilogram, watt and minute of deployment matters.

The company has already secured a European Space Agency project involving compact W-band antennas for satellite communications. That work demonstrates expertise in high-frequency integration. On its own, however, it does not amount to certification of a military system ready for deployment at scale.

Neither undetectable nor invulnerable

TERASi’s messaging uses words familiar to the defence market: “unjammable” and “undetectable”. These claims need a less absolute reading. A narrow beam can be considerably harder to detect, intercept or jam than a radio broadcasting over a wide area. It does not make a link invisible or impossible to disrupt.

The limits are physical as well as electronic. A millimetre-wave link depends on antenna alignment, terrain, obstacles and propagation conditions. The range of more than 100 kilometres claimed by TERASi may be achievable under favourable conditions, with line of sight, antennas placed at an appropriate height and suitable radio parameters. It says little about performance in a forest, dense urban area or mountainous environment, or with a unit moving at speed.

This is also why a compact form factor matters. When terrain blocks a direct link, operators need to move a relay, raise an antenna, use a vehicle or drone as an intermediate node, and reconfigure the network. Resilience is not a magical property of a device. It comes from an architecture, procedures and operators capable of putting them to work under pressure.

From radio to system

The €11 million will help TERASi accelerate product deployment, expand its engineering and field teams, and deepen partnerships with major defence contractors. The company also intends to broaden its offering into a system combining communications, situational awareness and electronic warfare.

The move makes sense. Even a highly differentiated component supplier depends on the integrator that installs its products. A systems supplier can capture more value and become a direct counterpart to armed forces, but it also takes on considerably more risk. Militaries do not buy a high-performance radio alone; they buy a capability that must fit into their vehicles, command software, encryption protocols and operational doctrine.

TERASi has yet to make that transition. It says it is working with the Swedish armed forces, the ESA and players in telecoms and defence. The startup therefore appears to be at the decisive stage where an advantage demonstrated in the lab must become a qualified, reproducible product that customers can procure.

NATO capital does not yet mean a NATO contract

The NATO Innovation Fund should not be confused with a military procurement agency. Backed by 24 allied countries and endowed with €1 billion, the venture fund invests in deeptech companies it considers relevant to defence, security and resilience.

Its investment is neither a NATO contract nor a guarantee of future orders. It does, however, provide strategic validation and greater visibility in the ecosystem where trials, standards, industrial partnerships and, eventually, European procurement decisions take shape. JOIN Capital brings a European deeptech and industrial perspective; In-Q-Tel has experience with US security applications; and D3, a Ukrainian investor, has a close view of the realities of modern electronic warfare.

For Europe, the significance extends beyond the Swedish company. The continent often talks about satellites, drones, munitions and artificial intelligence models. It spends less time discussing the equipment that allows those systems to exchange data when the network disappears.