British data intelligence company StirlingX has appointed Magnus Grimeland, founder and CEO of investment firm Antler, to its board.
His appointment as board director, global scale & capital comes alongside an oversubscribed $6m second close of its Series A, which takes the round to $25m.
The new funding comes mainly from existing investors GALLOS Technologies and Ventura Capital, alongside individual investors.
StirlingX said the capital will fund continued development of MAYNE, its data analytics product, and LEWES, its connected autonomy product, alongside growth across defence and critical national infrastructure.
Antler, which is based in Singapore, operates across 27 cities worldwide, has backed more than 2,000 startups and holds a portfolio valued at over $3.7bn, according to the company.
StirlingX said PitchBook ranked Antler the most active VC globally, and Dealroom named it the most active investor in AI startups.
Before Antler, Grimeland co-founded Zalora and went on to serve as chief operating officer of Global Fashion Group, scaling the business across 26 markets.
Earlier in his career he was a junior partner at McKinsey & Company, and he served in the Norwegian Naval Special Forces.
Dean Jones, CEO and co-founder of StirlingX, said: “Magnus joins us as we move from proving dual-use to scaling it.
“Our existing investors have seen how we work up close and chose to put more in, and we’re grateful for that.”
Grimeland said: “Europe and its allies need to own the technology that protects its infrastructure and its people, and StirlingX is building exactly that: a sovereign control layer that lets drones, sensors and autonomous systems work together under human command.
“This round gives Dean and the team the capital to take that from proven to scaled, and I am proud to be part of it.”
The company said the raise follows a year of commercial momentum, with 35 customers now operating across critical national infrastructure and defence.
StirlingX also said it has won its first multi-million dollar international contract.
It describes itself as building a sovereign intelligence and autonomy platform to help customers capture, secure, fuse, analyse and act on data from complex and contested environments.
BusinessCloud reported in July that StirlingX had raised £15m.
