Today, Europe’s power grid is undergoing a digital overhaul. Solar panels, wind turbines, EV chargers, smart meters, and automated substations – all these devices constantly exchange data to balance energy supply and demand in real time. As a result, keeping the lights on now depends just as much on software as it does on physical infrastructure.
The European Commission made the link explicit in its November 2023 EU Action Plan for Grids, which calls for interconnected, digitalised and cyber-resilient networks, backed by an estimated €584 billion in investment this decade.
The NIS2 Directive has since classified electricity, gas and district heating operators as essential entities, subject to the EU's strictest cybersecurity and incident-reporting obligations.
In addition to that, the Cyber Resilience Act's first binding obligations took effect in September 2026, requiring manufacturers to report actively exploited vulnerabilities in connected products.
These initiatives come at a critical time. ENISA's Threat Landscape 2025 report tracked nearly 4,900 cyber incidents across the EU between 2024 and 2025, with over half targeting entities covered by NIS2 regulations.
Energy ranked among the top five most targeted sectors, and the report highlighted the control systems that run power plants and electric grids as especially high-value targets for attackers. Given this threat landscape, innovative solutions that can address these security challenges are vital.
This article highlights six EIC Scaling Club members strengthening grid resilience: four cybersecurity companies from the Digital Security & Trust group building software and threat intelligence to protect grid operations, alongside two Renewable Energies members improving how those grids are used.
Founded: 2021
Recent funding: €10.5M Seed, June 2022
Scale-up edge: Autonomous, hacker's-eye view attack surface management
Amsterdam-based Hadrian Security continuously maps and tests an organisation's internet-facing assets the way an attacker would, rather than waiting for a scheduled security test. Founded by a team of hackers and developers, the company combines machine learning with real attack techniques to discover exposed systems.
For energy operators managing vast networks of substations, meters, and remote sensors, this outside-in visibility serves as a critical first line of defence, enabling them to identify and secure vulnerabilities before attackers can exploit them. Hadrian counts financial services and industrial clients among its customers, and has raised backing from HV Capital and ABN AMRO Ventures as it continues to scale across Europe.
Founded: 2016
Recent funding: Acquired by Snyk, November 2024
Scale-up edge: Developer-friendly web and API vulnerability scanning
Six application-security engineers founded Probely in Porto after leaving a telecom operator’s internal security team. Frustrated that existing scanning tools targeted security specialists rather than the developers fixing the flaws, they built an automated testing platform for web applications and APIs.
The platform detects issues like SQL injection and misconfigured SSL/TLS, providing plain-language instructions on how to resolve each vulnerability.
This developer-first testing is becoming essential for everyday engineering, especially as grid operators and software vendors expand APIs to connect smart meters, EV chargers, and distributed energy resources.
Snyk’s late-2024 acquisition of Probely integrated these scanning capabilities into its broader application-security platform, expanding its reach across software teams driving grid digitalisation.
Founded: 2020
Recent funding: €7.3M Series A, 2026
Scale-up edge: Analyst-curated cyber and geopolitical threat intelligence
Frankfurt-based QuoIntelligence pairs an AI platform with a team of European analysts who filter, translate and contextualise threat data before it ever reaches a client's inbox.
Their solution covers cyber threats, physical risks and geopolitical signals, and is built to help organisations meet compliance obligations under NIS2 and DORA.
That matters for critical infrastructure operators, many of which may lack the resources to run a dedicated threat-intelligence function but are now required to show proactive risk management.
QuoIntelligence's recent €7.3 million Series A, led by Elevator Ventures, will fund expansion of its Mercury platform and conversational AI analyst KARLA, while keeping intelligence data processing inside the EU.
Founded: 2022
Recent funding: €26M Series B, April 2025
Scale-up edge: AI-powered security operations, built to scale down to smaller operators
Paris-based Sekoia.io combines threat intelligence, logging, and automated response into a single platform that helps security teams detect, investigate, and handle attacks in real time.
Built for security operations centers and managed security service providers, the platform aims to make high-end detection accessible to organisations unable to staff a 24/7 internal security.
This model is particularly relevant for Europe's fragmented energy sector, where municipal utilities, industrial sites, and distribution operators often lack in-house security teams despite running critical infrastructure.
A €26 million Series B funding round will accelerate Sekoia.io's investment in agentic AI. This builds on a platform that already automatically detected 25% of the four million threats flagged in 2024.
Founded: 2015
Recent funding: €54M, June 2025
Scale-up edge: Robotics and AI for wind turbine inspection and repair
Latvian robotics company Aerones builds automated systems that inspect, clean, and repair wind turbine blades directly on-site. By replacing technicians working hundreds of metres in the air, the technology reduces maintenance time and minimizes safety risks.
Remotely operated, the robots increasingly use AI models trained on thousands of prior inspections to detect damage before it leads to downtime.
As wind grows into a larger share of Europe's power mix, an idle turbine becomes a grid problem, not just a maintenance one – fleets left waiting for a manual crew translate directly into gaps in generation that operators have to plan around.
By shrinking repair turnaround and idle time, Aerones can help keep more of a wind farm's capacity available when it is needed, making renewable output easier to forecast and rely on. Its recent €54 million round will fund its expansion across the US and Europe.
Founded: 2016
Recent funding: €23M Series B, July 2024
Scale-up edge: Sensors and AI software for precise real-time grid monitoring
Oslo-based Heimdall Power uses autonomous drones to clip sphere-shaped sensors onto live high-voltage power lines. The sensors stream real-time data on line temperature and load.
This solution lets grid operators see, often for the first time, how much spare capacity actually exists on lines that were previously planned around static, worst-case assumptions.
For European transmission operators handling long renewable connection queues and aging infrastructure, this information can unlock much-needed grid capacity without the time and cost of building new lines.
Backed by a €23 million Series B round, Heimdall Power plans to expand its technology beyond the 17 countries where it currently monitors lines.
The EIC Scaling Club is a curated community where 120 European deep tech scale-ups with the potential to build world-class businesses and solve major global challenges come together with investors, corporate innovators and other industry stakeholders to spur growth.
The top 120 European deep tech companies have been carefully selected from a pool of high-growth scale-ups that have benefitted from EIC financial schemes, other European and national innovation programmes, and beyond.
The EIC Scaling Club is an EIC-funded initiative run in partnership by Tech Tour, Bpifrance (EuroQuity), Hello Tomorrow, Tech.eu (Webrazzi), EurA and IESE Business School.
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