Alva Industries: The EIC Accelerator Motor Line That Drew Samsung

Most electric motors wrap copper wire around a core of stacked iron sheets. The iron strengthens the magnetic field, but it adds weight and causes the slight jerking known as cogging. Ironless motors leave the iron out and are lighter for the same output, but their self-supporting windings are hard to make and so cost more. Alva Industries, a Trondheim company founded in 2017, says it has solved the manufacturing problem with a process it calls FiberPrinting, which lays conductive fibre and structural fibre into a motor's stator by machine.

In the EIC SME Instrument Phase 2 cut-off of 3 April 2019, the European Commission selected Alva's PROMINEL project, "Production Method for Ironless Electric Motors", according to the Commission's list of winners, which names Alva as the project's only beneficiary. The grant was €2,204,965 towards a total cost of €3,149,950, for a demonstration production line, from 1 October 2019 to 30 June 2022, according to CORDIS. Seven years later the company has 63 employees, according to the Brønnøysund Register Centre, and has just raised €16 million.

Where Alva Stands in 2026

Alva Industries is active and growing. On 2 July 2026 it announced €16 million in equity financing led by Nysnø Climate Investments, Sandwater and Emerald Technology Ventures, the last on behalf of Nabtesco Technology Ventures, with Statkraft Ventures and EnvisionTech also investing, according to tech.eu and The Next Web. Samsung Ventures, which invested in December 2025, converted that stake into shares in the same round. The Brønnøysund register recorded a share capital increase to NOK 227,327 on 21 August 2026 and lists no bankruptcy or liquidation.

The company says it has "hundreds of active customer projects", according to Pulse 2.0, which reprinted the release. No customer list is public, so the figure cannot be checked.

The market focus has shifted since the grant. PROMINEL was aimed first at commercial drones. Alva's website now leads with two frameless motor lines, SlimTorq and GearTorq, for defence and satellite communications, camera gimbals, marine propulsion, surgical robots, metrology and semiconductor equipment. The underlying technology, FiberPrinting, is the same one the EU grant paid to industrialise.

How FiberPrinting Differs

In a 2019 interview with Norwegian SciTech News, founder Jørgen Selnes described the process as printing that combines conductive material with structural fibre. He said one machine could produce thousands of different stator designs. Alva claims copper fill factors of up to 60% in its slotless windings, according to AviTrader. A higher fill factor means more of the winding's space is copper that carries current. No independent test of that figure has been published.

The trade-off is magnetic strength. Without iron, the magnetic field in the air gap is weaker, so ironless motors depend on strong permanent magnets and dense windings. Alva also sells Halbach rotors, a magnet arrangement that concentrates the field on one side, according to its website.

What PROMINEL Promised and What CORDIS Shows

The CORDIS objective promised a demonstration production line that would cut the production cost of ironless motors and improve their performance, starting with drones and later moving into wind generators, medical devices, robotics and vehicle propulsion. The final periodic report, covering October 2021 to June 2022, says the prototype production line was commissioned by the project's end and "has since gone into full operation, delivering consistent, high-quality components for Alva's first commercial UAV motor products". It lists a patent portfolio of nine applications, four of them granted by the end of the project. The project closed on its planned end date of 30 June 2022 after 33 months.

A CORDIS results article from 10 November 2022 quotes co-founder Knut Nielsen saying that Alva had set up a full production facility in Norway and was shipping "first batches of UAV propulsion systems to our clients". Both statements come from the company. The production cost reduction the project promised has no published figure.

1. Demonstration production lineDeliveredCommissioned by June 2022, per the CORDIS report.
2. First commercial drone motorsDeliveredShipments reported in 2022; Lockheed Martin drone contract in 2024.
3. Patent protectionDeliveredNine applications, four granted by 2022, per CORDIS.
4. Lower production costUnverifiedNo cost figure published.
5. Markets beyond dronesUnder wayRobotics, medical and marine motors offered; no named customers.

Customers and Investors Since the Grant

In 2023 Alva raised "$11 million (NOK 117 million) in a 2023 Series A led by NRP Zero and Statkraft Ventures to scale into the industrial drone market", according to The Next Web. Unmanned Systems Technology published a report on the funding round in March 2023, according to its web address and search listing; its page could not be opened for this article, so the amount is not confirmed on the publisher's page.

In December 2024 Lockheed Martin awarded Alva a $1.85 million, 24-month contract to develop technology for small drones, with work involving the Sikorsky team, according to AviTrader. Automation.com carried the award under the headline "Lockheed Martin Awards Alva Industries $1.85 Million Contract to Collaborate on Advanced Technologies and Capabilities", as shown in its search listing, but its page could not be opened for this article; The Next Web confirms that Alva has worked with Lockheed Martin. Selnes, still chief executive then, called it a sign of "the potential of Alva's expertise". Three months later the register recorded Oliver Skisland as the new chief executive. No results from the 24-month Lockheed project have been published.

In December 2025 Samsung Electro-Mechanics invested a "multi-million-euro" sum through Samsung Ventures, aiming at motors for robot actuators, according to Today's Machining World and tech.eu. Samsung Electro-Mechanics chief executive Duckhyun Chang called FiberPrinting "a key competitive asset for next-generation robotic actuators". The amount has not been disclosed. The Next Web also reports past work with Boeing; no other source confirms it.

The Money

Alva's filed accounts, available from the Brønnøysund Register of Company Accounts for 2023 to 2025, show real sales growth. Operating revenue rose from NOK 7.49 million in 2023 to NOK 14.26 million in 2024 and NOK 24.96 million in 2025. Salary costs were NOK 30.0 million, NOK 24.7 million and NOK 28.9 million in those years, so the company is still spending more on wages than it sells. Accounts for 2019 to 2022, the years of the EIC project, could not be retrieved from a free source for this article.

The balance sheet shows why the 2026 round mattered. Cash fell from NOK 68.7 million at the end of 2023 to NOK 5.1 million at the end of 2025, while short-term debt stood at NOK 19.6 million. Equity fell from NOK 124.4 million to NOK 74.5 million over the same period. The accounts do not show whether Samsung's December 2025 money arrived before the year end.

Why It Matters to Europe

Drones and robots both run on small electric motors. The Commission's Drone Strategy 2.0, adopted on 29 November 2022, calls for synergies between civil and defence drone technology, a market it says could be worth €14.5 billion by 2030, as HeliHub also reported. A European maker of lightweight drive motors for drones fits that aim. Investment from Samsung and from Nabtesco's venture arm also means that some of the technology's future backing is from Asia.

The Verdict

Alva Industries was not contacted for this article. It is based on public records and published statements, linked throughout.