UpCloud
Verified“Finnish to the core: EU-owned, EU-run, EU-controlled cloud.”
- Revenue (2025)
- €27.3M
- Founded
- 2011
- Data centres
- ~15 / ~10 EU
- Employees
- ~90-120
87 = midpoint of Control 89 & Data 84
Sovereignty Quadrant
Control ↑ who owns & governs the company · Data → where your data lives. Every dot is a company — click to open it.
Every number below traces to 13 sourced facts across 10 independent sources, last verified 2026-06-12. 3 open questions hold confidence at 82% — they lower confidence, never the score.
Control ↑
Who legally and economically controls the company
Legal & Jurisdiction
92
Incorporated as UpCloud Oy in Helsinki (business ID 2431560-5, founded 7 Oct 2011), with its sole operating entity in Finland and no foreign parent company. The company is fully within reach of Finnish/EU law and states it redirects foreign authorities' requests to Finnish authorities via mutual legal-assistance frameworks. Top-tier EU enforceability.
Why 92? 3 sourced facts · click to expand
Legal entity and registration
Proff.fi (Finnish business registry data) · as of 2026-06-12
No foreign parent; Finnish-registered
UpCloud blog: US CLOUD Act & corporate structure · as of 2026-06-12
Foreign legal requests routed via Finnish authorities
UpCloud European Cloud Hosting / sovereignty pages · as of 2026-06-12
Control & Ownership
85
All known shareholders are EU-based. The €18M 2020 round (announced 21 Jan 2020) was led by Dutch fund Connected Capital, with Finnish Industry Investment (Tesi, state-owned) and Finnish VC Inventure participating. The board mixes Finnish founders Joel Pihlajamaa and Antti Vilpponen, Finnish chairman Sami Lampinen (Inventure) and Dutch Wim Haring (Connected Capital) — EU voting control and EU economic majority, privately held with no foreign listing. Reduced from top tier because the exact cap table is not public and a Dutch fund holds a large (possibly the single largest) stake; still fully EU.
Why 85? 3 sourced facts · click to expand
Lead 2020 investor (EU/Netherlands)
UpCloud press release via Cision · as of 2026-06-12
Board composition (3 Finnish, 1 Dutch)
Proff.fi (Finnish registry data) · as of 2026-06-12
State-backed EU investor present
Tesi case page: UpCloud · as of 2026-06-12
Data →
Where your data lives and who can reach it
Data & Infrastructure
82
UpCloud runs its own compute and a proprietary clustered all-flash storage system (MaxIOPS) built in-house, not a resold hyperscaler. Customer data never leaves the chosen data centre, and an EU Access Management Policy restricts privileged OS/console/physical access in EU data centres to EU-based employees — strong CLOUD Act resistance. Caveats keep it below top tier: the physical facilities are leased colocation space from carrier-neutral landlords (Equinix HE6, Telia Helsinki, etc.), some US-headquartered, and UpCloud also operates non-EU regions (US Chicago/NYC/San Jose, Singapore, Sydney) and non-EU-member European sites (UK, Norway) — sovereignty depends on the customer choosing an EU region.
Why 82? 4 sourced facts · click to expand
Own hardware + proprietary storage
UpCloud Cloud Servers product page · as of 2026-06-12
EU-only privileged access in EU data centres
UpCloud European Cloud Hosting page · as of 2026-06-12
Data stays in chosen region
UpCloud Security & Privacy · as of 2026-06-12
Facilities are leased colocation, not owned
UpCloud Data Center Information · as of 2026-06-12
Operations & People
88
Headquartered at Aleksanterinkatu 15 B, Helsinki, with an EU-majority board, EUR reporting (revenue €27.3M in 2025, €24.9M 2024), and a workforce concentrated in Finland (~89-129 staff) operating under an EU-staff access policy. Mild dilution: the CEO Arno Schäfer is German and the team spans ~18 nationalities, but operations and decision-making are EU-centered.
Why 88? 3 sourced facts · click to expand
HQ and reporting currency
Proff.fi (Finnish registry data) · as of 2026-06-12
Leadership
UpCloud blog: Arno Schäfer joins as CEO · as of 2026-06-12
Workforce size and spread
UpCloud About page · as of 2026-06-12
Aligned to the EU Commission’s official Cloud Sovereignty Framework (SEAL, Jun 2026) →
What we don’t know
3 open questions — they lower confidence, never the score
- ?
Exact shareholding percentages — does any single EU investor (e.g. Connected Capital) hold a majority of voting rights?
Cap table is not public; would refine the ownership score and confirm whether control is founder-led or fund-led, though all known holders are EU.
- ?
Whether any colocation landlord (e.g. US-headquartered Equinix) has any logical or contractual access to customer data.
Landlords typically provide only physical space, but unconfirmed; affects the strength of the CLOUD Act / infra sovereignty claim.
- ?
Latest verified employee count and geographic split of staff (sources range ~89 to ~129).
Affects precision of the operations assessment, not its direction.
EU Cloud Sovereignty Framework lens
SEAL targets cloud service providers directly; this is an analogous EU-sovereignty mapping for an IaaS provider, not a formal SEAL certification.
Strategic
Explicitly positioned as an EU-sovereign alternative to hyperscalers; CISPE member; EU-owned with state-backed EU investor (Tesi).
Legal & jurisdictional
UpCloud Oy incorporated and operated in Finland, no foreign parent; foreign legal requests routed via Finnish authorities.
Data & AI
Data stays in chosen region; EU Access Management Policy limits privileged access to EU staff for EU DCs. Non-EU regions exist but are customer-opt-in.
Operational
Helsinki HQ, EU-majority board, EUR reporting, Finland-centered workforce. CEO is German; team multinational.
Supply chain
Owns its compute/storage stack but leases colocation space from carrier-neutral landlords (Equinix, Telia), some US-headquartered.
Technological
Proprietary MaxIOPS storage and platform built in-house; not a resold hyperscaler.
Security & compliance
ISO 27001 certified ISMS; adheres to CISPE Code of Conduct approved by EU data protection authorities; GDPR.
Environmental sustainability
Newer Nordic sites (Copenhagen, Norway) on 100% renewable energy with heat reuse; full-fleet figures not verified here.
EU alternatives
German-owned IaaS/dedicated-server provider running its own data centres in Germany and Finland; strong EU-sovereign peer.
French cloud (Iliad group), own EU data centres; broader managed-service catalogue than UpCloud.
Large French EU cloud, owns its data centres; Euronext-listed so part of the economic base is public-market float.
How the method works
Methodology v2 (provisional): the score is the midpoint of two axes — Control (who owns and governs the company) and Data (where your data lives and who can reach it). Each axis is scored only on verified evidence; unknowns reduce confidence, never the score. Every input below is sourced; the weights and judgments are open to challenge.
Spotted an error? Every claim is sourced — challenge it and we correct the record.
- 2026-06-12 — Initial golden profile, authored from primary sources (human + AI review).
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Verified 2026-06-12 · Human + AI joint review (sources independently checked) · Methodology