Politics

Redpine secures €6.8 million to accelerate licensed data access for AI applications

Tuesday, 28 April 2026 9:42AM UTC

Stockholm-based startup Redpine has raised €6.8 million to expand its AI data platform, offering real-time access to licensed data via an API and challenging the reliance on web-scraped content amid growing legal pressures.

Redpine, a Stockholm-based startup building infrastructure for AI data, has raised €6.8 million in fresh funding in a round led by NordicNinja, with backing from Luminar Ventures and node.vc. The new capital lifts its total funding to €9 million and will be used to push into international markets while expanding a network of exclusive data partnerships.

Founded in 2024 by Anders Hammarbäck and David Österdahl, with Leonora Vesterbacka as founding data scientist, Redpine is pitching a different kind of data business for the AI era. Rather than selling static, human-labelled datasets, the company offers a headless API that lets AI agents query premium licensed data in real time and pay on a token-based usage model. Redpine says the system is designed for mission-critical areas including healthcare, legal services, financial markets, scientific research and news, where poor data can quickly compound into larger errors.

The startup’s argument is that the industry’s dependence on scraped web data is increasingly brittle, legally exposed and commercially undifferentiated. In that sense, the founders say, the problem resembles the music industry before Spotify: instead of trying to police misuse, the answer is to make licensed access more practical than piracy. That pitch comes as legal pressure on unauthorised AI training data continues to intensify, with major disputes and new EU disclosure requirements sharpening the debate around how models should be trained.

Redpine’s backers include investors linked to OpenAI, Perplexity and Spotify, alongside new investor Peter Sarlin, the co-founder and former chief executive of Silo AI, which AMD acquired in 2024. The company says its platform already gives access to more than 100 billion tokens of premium licensed data and positions itself against annotation-first firms such as Scale AI, Appen and Defined.ai. Its long-term aim is to become a global leader in AI data infrastructure within three to five years, a goal that will depend on whether enterprises, AI labs and rights holders are ready to move from scraped content to licensed, API-native data pipelines.

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Source: Noah Wire Services

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https://thenextweb.com/news/redpine-raises-e6-8m-api-for-ai-agents - Please view link - unable to able to access data
https://www.redpine.ai/ - Redpine is a Stockholm-based AI data infrastructure startup founded in 2024 by Anders Hammarbäck and David Österdahl. The company offers a headless API that enables AI agents to access premium licensed datasets in real time, operating on a token-based usage model. Redpine focuses on mission-critical domains such as healthcare, legal, financial markets, scientific research, and news, ensuring data quality by filtering out outdated or unreliable material before it reaches the agent. The platform aims to become the global leader in AI data infrastructure within three to five years, addressing the growing AI training data segment, which is expanding at 24.9% annually within the broader trillion-dollar AI market. Investors include Colin M. Evans (OpenAI), Gustav Lindqvist (Perplexity), Anna Nordell Westling (Sana), Daniel Langkilde (Kognic), and several Spotify alumni. New investor Peter Sarlin is co-founder and former CEO of Silo AI, the Finnish AI lab acquired by AMD for $665 million in 2024. Redpine's platform already provides access to more than 100 billion tokens of premium licensed data, positioning itself as an API-native, agent-first alternative to annotation-first services like Scale AI, Appen, and Defined.ai. The company's approach aims to address the legal challenges associated with unauthorized AI training data by offering licensed access that is easier and better than the alternative, similar to how Spotify addressed piracy in the music industry. The funding round led by NordicNinja, with participation from Luminar Ventures and node.vc, brings Redpine's total funding to €9 million, supporting its international expansion and growth of exclusive data partnerships.
https://sifted.eu/articles/redpine-raises-e6-8m-to-give-ai-agents-access-to-non-public-data - Redpine, a Stockholm-based AI data infrastructure startup, has raised €6.8 million in a seed funding round led by NordicNinja, with participation from Luminar Ventures and node.vc. The company has developed an API interface for AI companies and agents to access premium data across various domains, focusing on scientific data. CEO Anders Hammarbäck highlights that while AI agents primarily access internet data, only 1% of the world's data is openly available online, and the best data often resides in archives and databases. Redpine's platform aims to bridge this gap by providing AI systems with access to high-quality, non-public data, thereby enhancing precision, accuracy, and reliability. The funding will support Redpine's international expansion and the growth of its network of exclusive data partnerships.
https://techfundingnews.com/nordicninja-leads-redpine-in-e6-8m-round-to-let-ai-agents-access-private-data/ - Redpine, a Stockholm-based AI data infrastructure startup, has secured €6.8 million in new funding led by NordicNinja, with backing from Luminar Ventures and node.vc. The company aims to expand internationally and grow its network of exclusive data partnerships. Founded in 2024 by Anders Hammarbäck and David Österdahl, Redpine addresses the issue of AI startups training on the same scraped internet data, which creates no differentiation and generates no compensation for the rights holders. The platform provides AI agents with access to premium licensed datasets in real time, operating on a token-based usage model, and focuses on mission-critical domains such as healthcare, legal, financial markets, scientific research, and news.
https://www.redpine.ai/blog/redpine-launch - Redpine, a Stockholm-based AI data infrastructure startup, has officially launched with the goal of providing AI builders and agents with high-quality, real-world, licensed data. Founded in 2024 by Anders Hammarbäck and David Österdahl, with Leonora Vesterbacka as the founding data scientist, Redpine addresses the challenge of AI systems operating with critical blind spots due to a lack of trustworthy, domain-specific data. The platform offers access to high-quality, multi-modal, and domain-specific datasets, including text, images, video, audio, and code across various domains such as medical, legal, scientific, and coding. Redpine has secured $1.3 million in funding from prominent angel investors and established partnerships with leading foundational AI companies and content owners worldwide. The company aims to become the global leader in the foundational data infrastructure layer for AI models and agents, making AI smarter by grounding it in reality.
https://www.linkedin.com/company/redpineai - Redpine is a Stockholm-based AI data infrastructure startup founded in 2024 by Anders Hammarbäck and David Österdahl. The company offers a headless API that enables AI agents to access premium licensed datasets in real time, operating on a token-based usage model. Redpine focuses on mission-critical domains such as healthcare, legal, financial markets, scientific research, and news, ensuring data quality by filtering out outdated or unreliable material before it reaches the agent. The platform aims to become the global leader in AI data infrastructure within three to five years, addressing the growing AI training data segment, which is expanding at 24.9% annually within the broader trillion-dollar AI market. Investors include Colin M. Evans (OpenAI), Gustav Lindqvist (Perplexity), Anna Nordell Westling (Sana), Daniel Langkilde (Kognic), and several Spotify alumni. New investor Peter Sarlin is co-founder and former CEO of Silo AI, the Finnish AI lab acquired by AMD for $665 million in 2024. Redpine's platform already provides access to more than 100 billion tokens of premium licensed data, positioning itself as an API-native, agent-first alternative to annotation-first services like Scale AI, Appen, and Defined.ai. The company's approach aims to address the legal challenges associated with unauthorized AI training data by offering licensed access that is easier and better than the alternative, similar to how Spotify addressed piracy in the music industry. The funding round led by NordicNinja, with participation from Luminar Ventures and node.vc, brings Redpine's total funding to €9 million, supporting its international expansion and growth of exclusive data partnerships.
https://www.redpine.com/press/redpanda-acquires-oxla-launches-new-agentic-data-plane-for-enterprise-data - Redpanda, the real-time data platform for the agentic enterprise, has announced the availability of the Agentic Data Plane (ADP), a new suite for safely and scalably connecting AI agents across the growing digital workforce. The ADP provides a reliable data access layer to build AI agents with complete traceability, observability, and governance for enterprise environments. Built on modern, battle-tested data stacks, including the Redpanda Streaming platform, the Redpanda Connect data connectivity suite, and the recently acquired Oxla standard SQL query engine and database, the ADP enables governed data access to safely accelerate the production of enterprise AI agents. Alex Gallego, CEO and founder of Redpanda, stated that AI agents have made initial inroads into the private networks of the modern enterprise, and the ADP aims to provide

Noah Fact Check Pro

The draft above was created using the information available at the time the story first emerged. We’ve since applied our fact-checking process to the final narrative, based on the criteria listed below. The results are intended to help you assess the credibility of the piece and highlight any areas that may warrant further investigation.

Freshness check

Score: 10

Notes: The article was published on April 28, 2026, and no earlier versions of this specific content were found. The information appears to be fresh and original.

Quotes check

Score: 10

Notes: The article does not contain direct quotes, so this check is not applicable.

Source reliability

Score: 8

Notes: The article is from The Next Web, a reputable technology news outlet. However, the article includes a promotional link to Redpine's website, which may indicate a potential conflict of interest. This could affect the perceived objectivity of the reporting.

Plausibility check

Score: 9

Notes: The claims about Redpine's funding and business model are plausible and align with industry trends. However, the comparison to Spotify's model for data access is a marketing angle that may not fully capture the complexities of the data licensing market.

Overall assessment

Verdict (FAIL, OPEN, PASS): CONDITIONAL

Confidence (LOW, MEDIUM, HIGH): MEDIUM

Summary: While the article provides fresh and plausible information, the inclusion of promotional content and potential conflicts of interest raise concerns about the independence and objectivity of the reporting. Editors should exercise caution and consider seeking additional independent verification before publishing.

AI infrastructure
Data licensing
Startups