The European Investment Bank has signed a €24 million venture debt facility with Wirepas, the Finnish connectivity software company. The bank signed the loan on 27 May 2026 and announced the financing on 9 June. The operation is backed by InvestEU and sits under the EIB Group's TechEU programme.
The EIB register splits the signed amount as €16.8 million for Finland and €7.2 million for France. Wirepas will use the money for research, development and innovation in those two countries and for commercial expansion in Europe and beyond. The register puts the approximate total project cost at €54 million. The bank approved the operation on 18 December 2025. The borrower on the project sheet is Wirepas Oy.
Wirepas, founded in 2010 and based in Tampere, writes software for large wireless mesh networks. The EIB said the software was already running on more than 20 million devices worldwide, including a mesh of more than one million smart electricity meters, and is used on energy grids and in factories, buildings and cities. Teppo Hemiä is chief executive.
Wirepas said existing investors and board members put in a further €5 million of equity alongside the facility, taking the combined additional funding to close to €30 million. Tesi, the Finnish state investment company, is a longstanding shareholder. Juha Lehtola, Tesi's director of venture and growth investments, said Tesi had "evidenced its business growing to large commercial scale with more than 20 million deployed nodes" and was "happy to continue our co-operation with EIB in investing into Finnish world-class deep tech companies." Tesi first invested through the FEFSI co-investment facility it formed with the EIB, and made a follow-on investment in 2021.
In October 2023 Wirepas raised $22 million led by Highland Europe. Amalfi and IQT joined as new investors. Existing backers ETF Partners, KPN Ventures, Vito Ventures and Vesa Laisi also participated. Highland Europe said the company is also backed by Inventure, Karma and Tesi. Tesi said it did not invest in that 2023 round.
The EIB described the support as venture debt, long-term financing for innovative, fast-growing companies that complements venture capital and other equity while limiting immediate dilution for existing shareholders. Yu Zhang, the EIB's head of division for deep tech, digital and life sciences, said: "Europe needs to scale technologies that can connect millions of devices reliably and at low cost." Hemiä said: "With the support of the EIB, we can accelerate the development and deployment of Wirepas technology across Europe and beyond, enabling industries and cities to connect millions of devices securely and efficiently."