Stockholm-based AI startup Farang has raised €1.5 million in seed funding to advance a new AI architecture that departs from the Transformer models dominating the field. The round was led by Voima Ventures and the Amadeus APEX Technology Fund (Amadeus Capital Partners and APEX Ventures), with support from angel investors including Tero Ojanperä (Silo AI co-founder), Nilay Oza, and Niraj Aswani (former Klevu founders). Farang is developing a brain-inspired model that generates responses by first forming the complete concept before translating it into words. With the fresh capital, Farang plans to expand its proof-of-concept models, scale compute resources, and target specialized use cases in programming, healthcare, and enterprise AI tools where privacy and domain expertise are critical.
Founded earlier this year by engineer Emil Romanus, Farang is pursuing a foundational AI architecture that differs from the incremental improvements common in the industry. Instead of generating responses token by token, the company’s model is designed to form a complete conceptual understanding of a response before producing text. Farang says this approach could allow models to produce more coherent outputs while using up to 25 times fewer computational resources, reducing the cost and environmental footprint of training large AI models.
“We’re not building another application layer on top of existing models,” explains Emil Romanus, Farang’s Founder. “We’ve developed a completely new foundational architecture that enables us to create specialized AI assistants that outperform current solutions in specific domains like programming and medicine, while using dramatically less computational power. Based on current testing, we believe the percentage of resources used will decrease even further in the future.”
The seed funding will be used to scale Farang’s proof-of-concept models, expand computational resources for training, and develop specialized applications.
“We’re taking a different path than the big tech companies,” said Romanus. “By proving our architecture works in specialized domains first, we’re building the foundation to eventually challenge the current leaders across all AI applications.”
The company’s initial focus includes AI assistants for programming, starting with frameworks such as React, tools tailored to medical fields, and enterprise AI systems that can operate entirely on-premises to maintain full data privacy. By allowing organizations to train and deploy AI models internally, Farang aims to address privacy and compliance concerns, particularly in sectors such as healthcare, finance, and law.
Inka Mero, managing partner and founder of Voima Ventures, commented, “We look for exceptional founders and technologies that reset the curve—not just optimize around the edges. Farang showcases how Europe can step up in the global AI race, as its foundational architecture provides a true paradigm shift—specialized, efficient, and enterprise-grade from day one.”
Farang’s five-person team will begin by targeting specialized applications to demonstrate the effectiveness of its architecture, with a longer-term ambition of expanding into general AI markets. The company has launched a waitlist for early access, targeting individual developers and AI enthusiasts.
Ion Hauer, Principal at APEX Ventures, added: “We’re constantly evaluating breakthrough technologies that could redefine entire sectors, and Farang caught our attention immediately. For years, the industry has been making incremental improvements to the same Transformer foundation. What Emil and his team have developed represents a fundamental architectural leap—the kind of foundational change we believe will separate the next generation of AI leaders from today’s incumbents.”
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Read the orginal article: https://arcticstartup.com/farang-raises-e1-5-million-seed/
