AI Startup Redpine Closes $8M Seed To Unlock Non-Public Data For AI Agents

NordicNinja led the funding round backing Redpine, a platform that enables AI agents to pay per token for licensed, premium datasets spanning science, law, finance and news.

Redpine, a Stockholm-based startup, disclosed Monday it has raised $8 million in seed funding to build data infrastructure that gives AI agents access to premium, non-public datasets addressing what the company calls a structural gap in how artificial intelligence systems retrieve information. 

The round was led by Nordic venture firm NordicNinja, with participation from Luminar Ventures and node.vc. NordicNinja General Partner Marek Kiisa will join Redpine’s board, the company said. 

The AI startup said it will use the capital to scale its network of proprietary data partnerships, expand globally, and accelerate hiring across engineering, data science, and go-to-market functions. 

The company also disclosed strategic angel investment from Peter Sarlin, co-founder of SiloAI; Patrik Tran, co-founder of Validio; Anna Nordell Westling, co-founder of Sana; and unnamed leaders from OpenAI, Perplexity, and Spotify. 

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Founded in 2024 by Anders Hammarbäck and David Österdahl, Redpine contends that roughly 1% of the world’s data is openly available for AI training, leaving the vast majority locked in archives, proprietary databases, and institutional repositories. The platform operates as a headless API layer accessed via the Model Context Protocol, through which AI agents query and retrieve licensed data, paying per token consumed.

Redpine is building the infrastructure to enable the token-based agent economy to grow sustainably for all stakeholders. The opportunities in this space are endless, and we see applications across clinical guidelines, case law, physical research, financial markets data, and quality human-created news.
CEO Anders Hammarbäck

Österdahl, who joined the company as a co-founder and chief product and technology officer, was part of Spotify’s early technical team. He said the parallel to that company’s licensing model is deliberate.

The company confirmed it is working with leading international AI labs and AsedaSciences, a U.S.-based biotechnology research firm. 

The move comes as copyright litigation against major AI companies has pushed publishers and data owners to seek licensed, compensated distribution channels. Redpine’s model routes revenue back to data rights holders on a usage basis.

Chegg, an education technology company, is among the data partners Redpine has disclosed. Chegg CFO David Longo said the arrangement is designed to expand the company’s reach to new markets while ensuring fair value for its content. 

Redpine cited third-party market projections in its announcement: McKinsey estimates agentic commerce could generate up to $5 trillion in global retail revenue by 2030, while BCG projects a $200 billion net uplift in the total addressable market for tech service providers from agentic AI over the same period. 

The company’s founding team includes alumni from Spotify, Sana, Zettle, and Lunar, as well as McKinsey, CERN, and H&M. Founding data scientist Dr. Leonora Vesterbacka leads development of Redpine’s proprietary retrieval and reranking technology. 

Redpine said it is currently serving clients and data partners across the U.S., Europe, and Asia.

Disclaimer: This news is based on publicly available information. NervNow has not independently verified any claims.

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