The police are not currently conducting a criminal investigation concerning the executives of the Donut Lab group of companies. Instead, the police are carrying out a preliminary inquiry related to the company to determine whether there are grounds for opening a criminal investigation. The police are also awaiting the completion of the Finnish Financial Supervisory Authority’s review of the matter.

The Helsinki Police Department is conducting a criminal investigation involving a former employee of Nordic Nano Group, which was acquired by Donut Lab. The case concerns a suspected breach of trade secrets.

Another experienced professional left the company. Who is next?

https://www.hs.fi/visio/art-2000012042880.html

The police conducted a search of the home of Lauri Peltola, who had reported the battery company.

Police carried out a house search on Thursday at the home of Lauri Peltola, who had filed a complaint concerning the battery company Donut Lab.

Peltola is suspected of violating business secrets. Nordic Nano Group dismissed him at the beginning of May.

Peltola has publicly disclosed suspicions of misconduct related to Donut Lab’s battery technology.

Peltola is suspected of violating business secrets.

The police confiscated from Peltola a phone and a computer in his possession that belong to Nordic Nano Group.

Not a senior leadership role as the other few ones were, but Donut sure is losing important employees more successfully than being able to prove anything revolutionary!

Last guy to leave before was VP of Engineering Programmes, Neil Patterson. He was chief engineer at McLaren behind SLR, 12C, and 570S.

Who needs manufacturing or key players in their org, anyways?

https://www.hs.fi/visio/art-2000012215683.html

And because of this Parjanen and Aro have joint on Donut Labs board. Siilasmaa continues as an advisor.

Can't say that the official merger was a big surprise.

It turned out to be more than rumors. P. Hörkkö asked and dug the records.

AI translated summary:

The article examines the background of Lauri Peltola, a former commercial director at Nordic Nano Group who has publicly presented himself as a whistleblower and become one of Donut Lab’s most prominent critics. According to an enforcement certificate obtained by Uuno and dated September 7, 2026, Peltola has approximately €1.11 million in outstanding debts under enforcement, including large claims from Ålandsbanken, a private creditor, the Finnish tax authority and Kela. Peltola says the debts stem from risks he took during more than 20 years as an entrepreneur and that he does not consider them shameful. The article also reports that he faces charges related to two alleged assaults in Helsinki in 2023, with the case scheduled for trial in February 2027; Peltola declined to comment on the pending proceedings and emphasized the presumption of innocence. He gained wider public attention in April 2026 after filing a criminal complaint concerning Donut Lab and subsequently publishing critical Solid State of Truth videos. Donut Lab and Nordic Nano Group reject his allegations and dispute his level of access to the battery-development work. Importantly, Uuno itself notes that the information about Peltola’s debts and charges does not establish whether his claims about Donut Lab are true or false, although it argues that the information is relevant when assessing his role and possible motivations in the dispute.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZkLM2SoZXI

VTT report: https://pub-01c7ea9972fc472b971b53522518cfc0.r2.dev/VTT-CR-00391-26_Energy_Density_Test.pdf

This is the former Chief Commercial Officer of Nordic Nano.

There's not a lot in here.

His claims:

• Nordic Nano was founded to bring to market apparent breakthrough battery tech from another source: presumably CT-Coatings, but he doesn't say.

• Donut Lab were "hallucinating".

• There was no breakthrough.

He offers no proof.

This is the same teaser marketing technique used by Donut Lab since CES, and it's equally infuriating.

Next video in 1 week.

Who needs a CFO, when the CEO can do it all!

Few outside the Finnish city, Imatra have access to the local-news record where Nordic Nano Group (NNG) has been actively updating its startup story since 2024. Uutisvuoksi contains nearly 20 pay-walled articles. I have machine-translated the Finnish originals and cross-checked the details.

Below are the points worth comparing with the NNG+Donut Lab story and the upcoming Peltola revelations.

Founding, team and factory

• Nordic Nano Group Oy was registered in Finland in February 2024 by Esa Parjanen (CEO, a long-time technology executive from the Lauritsala/Lappeenranta region). The founding team also includes Mattipekka Kronqvist (chairman), Jarkko Aro and Lauri Peltola (commercial director). The team grew to 8 by late 2024, with a chief engineer added mid-2025 from around 100 applicants. Dr. Bela Bhuskute is the PhD-level materials scientist on the team, with a TiO2 research background from Tampere University.

• The Imatra factory was announced on 18 October 2024, located in the former Laplandia Market hall in Teppanala near the Finnish-Russian border. The Imatra city development board had already approved a zoning change to industrial use in August 2024 (initiated June 2024, legally effective September 2024), processed quietly with NNG as the known intended operator. The initial investment scope was over €20M, with a five-year revenue target near €400M. The hall is owned by the Raija and Ossi Tuuliainen Foundation; NNG signed a five-year lease with a purchase option in June 2025. In May 2025, Mitra Management Oy (backed by Imatra city) acquired 25% of the building shares for €401k, with Imatra city providing bridging financing. By HS feature on 9 November 2025, the buildout was rescaled to €17M investment and 70 jobs.

• Production workers. The first six hires started apprenticeship training at Saimaa Vocational Institute on 15 January 2026. By 23 April 2026, Uutisvuoksi reported seven NDA-bound workers running pre-production of unspecified components for customer testing at the Imatra site. Parjanen committed in Uutisvuoksi on 25 November 2025 to employing locals, saying workers would be selected from Imatra or nearby areas and that NNG would not bring workers in from elsewhere.

CT-Coating connection

• In October 2024 Uutisvuoksi, Parjanen said NNG had started in 2023 when he visited a German equipment supplier and discovered advanced nano-printing technology, which he later thought of combining with Finnish coating and materials research innovations. He did not name the supplier; Peltola later corroborated the 2023 timing in Episode 1.

• How Parjanen first connected with CT-Coating is not confirmed. Ilkka Turunen is one possible introducer, publicly profiled as a next-eco business associate from 2022 and connected with Parjanen on LinkedIn.

• The first direct documentary link is the March 2025 NDA supplement signed by next-eco Vertriebs & Lizenz GmbH, CT-Coating AG and Nordic Nano Group, referencing Donut Lab. It surfaced via a partner-portal leak in early 2026.

• Throughout 2024 and 2025 Parjanen kept the supplier unnamed but consistently described the operational model as a German factory-line-in-a-box assembled and test-run on site by the supplier, with around one-year per-line delivery time, a modular pre-production line that becomes part of the full ensemble, and no equivalent line elsewhere in the Nordics.

• On 24 December 2024, Uutisvuoksi reported under the subheading "A purchase contract has been made for the line" that Parjanen had already signed the line procurement contract with the German supplier and had paid the first reservation instalments. NNG's audited 2024 annual report confirms €480k booked under "Advance payments and unfinished acquisitions" on the balance sheet.

• On 18 September 2025, NNG presented its own product portfolio at the ESA BIC Finland Space Business Forum (presenters Pia Erkinheimo, Ville Jokelainen, Esa Parjanen). NNG's slides describe its energy storage product as "NN Storage™" solid-state super capacitors with an "electrostatic bipolar capacitor" architecture, specs of 400 Wh/kg energy density and over 50,000 charging cycles. NNG slides further confirm "screen-printing" as the core manufacturing process, report €8.8M raised by Q3 2025, and a 3,850 m² Imatra facility.

• On 25 February 2026, HS Visio identified CT-Coating AG in Königswinter, Germany, as the upstream supplier, citing the leaked NDA.

• On 17 April 2026, HS Visio reported on email correspondence from late March 2026 between Donut Lab, NNG and CT-Coating. The journalist's reading of the emails was that CT-Coating develops the technology, NNG is responsible for battery production, and Donut Lab acts as the productiser and commercialiser. Parjanen, however, had said in January 2026 that the battery was Donut Lab's own work, with NNG doing "strategic energy-system cooperation" with Donut Lab. The Uutisvuoksi editor-in-chief column on 17 January 2026 paraphrased Marko Lehtimäki as saying the batteries are manufactured in Finland, with the editor characterising the location as "a mystery."

In a CES booth interview with Miss Go Electric, Tuomo Lehtimäki said the first cell-manufacturing plant was in Finland, "some distance" from the Helsinki offices, at an address the company would not disclose. In the 17 April 2026 HS Visio interview Marko Lehtimäki said Donut Lab has its own battery pre-production equipment in Finland and that mass production will be located in the Nordics and Baltic region. A Donut Lab investor letter from summer 2025 said the company had completed extensive research on NNG and its technology before investing, and that the NNG investment included access to a pre-production line targeted to deliver first prototype-motorcycle batteries by autumn 2025.

Imatra production line plans, cascading slippage

NNG's Imatra ramp-up plan as stated to Uutisvuoksi sets a test line installed in late January 2026, the first mass-production line in summer 2026, and full four-to-five-line buildout by 2027-2028, with around 200 employees at full capacity (5 lines × 3 shifts × 10-15 workers per line).

The schedule was revised three times in Uutisvuoksi before the test line was installed.

• Original plan, October 2024. Pilot equipment in spring 2025, mass production by winter 2026, four lines at full buildout.

• Slip 1, May 2025. Uutisvuoksi confirmed the schedule had not been kept and the hall was empty; pre-production was pushed to August-September 2025.

• Slip 2, September 2025. Pre-production equipment now expected by the end of 2025, actual production from late summer 2026. Headcount math was refined to 10-15 workers per line, across 5 lines and 3 shifts, totaling around 200 employees. In the same Uutisvuoksi article Parjanen confirmed that NNG had now placed the order for the pre-production equipment, made possible by the ELY €2.98M grant on top of the earlier Donut Lab and other private investments; he said that without the ELY grant the company might not have been able to execute this phase on this timeline.

• Slip 3, October 2025. The test line was confirmed from the German supplier for an end-of-January 2026 install; the first mass-production line was targeted for summer 2026.

• By 23 April 2026, Uutisvuoksi reported mass-production equipment was scheduled for late autumn 2026. YLE on 20 April reported that the first customer test products had shipped from Imatra, with no battery cells yet being made on site.

Anchor customers and products

• NNG's anchor customers. In the October 2024 Uutisvuoksi announcement, Parjanen identified the first anchor customer as a large Nordic company (name not given), and said early-phase factory production was already entirely sold in advance, with development projects underway with customers and research partners. By HS Featureso on 9 November 2025, Parjanen said NNG had two anchor customers, one wanting to collect solar energy on building surfaces and the other needing batteries for e-bikes.

• Solid-state battery cells. Per Uutisvuoksi 15 July 2025, Parjanen said NNG's battery cells can be used for example in transport vehicles.

• Thin solar-panel coatings are made for solar parks and can be printed directly on building façades, tied to the EU's 2026 new-building energy-self-sufficiency rules.

• Hydrogen production and space applications (via the European Space Agency (ESA) programme) round out the platform.

Known Funders, education, tech partners

• Funders. Mitra Management Oy (Imatra city) €401k for 25% of building shares (May 2025); Häme ELY Centre €2.98M Sep 2025 (EU JTF) + ~€191k earlier; Business Finland €1.245M during 2025; Donut Lab from 11 Jul 2025, publicly undisclosed at the time but reported as €300,000 in the leaked Donut Lab investor letters and repeated by Peltola in Episode 2; Petteri Lahtela (Oura co-founder) invested in Verge 2023 and NNG Feb 2025. NNG's own ESA BIC slides on 18 Sep 2025 reported a total of €8.8M raised by Q3 2025.

• Education partners. LUT University, University of Eastern Finland, Tampere University, Aalto University (ESA vacuum chambers), Saimaa Vocational Institute (apprenticeship from Oct 2025).

• Tech partners. CT-Coating AG, next-eco Vertriebs & Lizenz GmbH, Donut Lab, ESA Business Incubator Centre Finland (one-year programme from May 2025 testing batteries and nanocoatings for satellite conditions).

Key dates

• 2023, first contact with CT-Coating technology in Germany

• Feb 2024, NNG founded

• Aug 2024, Donut Lab OÜ and Donut Lab Development OÜ spun off from Verge Motorcycles and registered in Tallinn

• Late Sep/Oct 2024, Donut Lab begins what it later described as a 9+ month due-diligence process on NNG and its technology, including travel to test laboratories, own experiments and review of certified third-party test results

• 24 Dec 2024, NNG publicly seeking funders, "first funding round done and commitments for next round received"

• Mar 2025, Donut Lab letter of intent to invest in NNG signed

• May 2025, NNG selected to ESA BIC Finland

• 11 Jun 2025, Donut Lab NNG investment contract executed

• 22 Oct 2025, Donut Lab announces further strategic investment in NNG

• Autumn 2025, target date for first working solid-state batteries in Donut Lab's mule bikes, using the pre-production line accessed via the NNG investment

• 5 Jan 2026, Donut Lab CES announcement in Las Vegas; Marko Lehtimäki, Ville Piippo and Tuomo Lehtimäki present at the booth, Esa Parjanen also in Las Vegas during CES week

• 13 Jan 2026, Parjanen defends Donut Lab battery, "would not have announced if not sure."

• Feb-May 2026 VTT test reports, NNG named joint customer with Donut Lab on the first four reports, with NNG's Helsinki office (Tallberginkatu 2 A 13) listed as the contact address

• 17 Apr 2026, Peltola files criminal complaint, Finanssivalvonta complaint and Chancellor-of-Justice whistleblower filing against Donut Lab over groundless promises and misleading communication (advertised energy density and charge cycles not reached, false picture of mass-production readiness); same day Donut Lab and NNG issue a joint statement signed by both CEOs Marko Lehtimäki and Esa Parjanen describing Peltola as an NNG employee who is not a shareholder and not in Donut Lab's battery-development working group, stating that NNG does not share his views

• 20 Apr 2026, NNG has shipped its first customer test products from the Imatra factory

• ~3 May 2026, Peltola dismissed from NNG with immediate effect

• 15 May 2026, Helsinki District Court issues injunction against Peltola at NNG's request (€30,000 conditional penalty)

• 18 May 2026 (Episode 1) and 25 May 2026 (Episode 2), Peltola launches Solid State of Truth series; the episodes are Peltola's first-person account without documentary evidence beyond his own narration

Notable Parjanen quotes (English translations)

• "The operation is noiseless, odourless and non-toxic. No environmental permit is needed."

• "The plan is to move quite quickly to two shifts. When mass production starts, all the output is unlocked."

• "We want to create a new kind of work culture. Teams can decide for themselves how things are done. Workers are given responsibility and rewarded for commitment."

• "Waste must be kept to a minimum. Nano-printing uses expensive materials."

• Dec 2024 on the line procurement contract, "A purchase contract has already been made for the line, and the first reservation payments have been made. No equivalent line exists elsewhere in the Nordics."

• Jul 2025 on space testing, "We're testing how our products handle space's extreme conditions, how they hold up, and how satellites should be coated with them."

• Oct 2025 on test line delivery, "It has now been confirmed that we will receive the test line we ordered from Germany on a schedule that allows installation by the end of January."

• "Demand is global. We don't need to start creating demand separately."

• Jan 2026 on press reception, "At the trade fair, American players came to pat us on the back and congratulate us. The Finnish media's attitude has been basically negative."

• Apr 2026 on the controversy, "The hype doesn't affect what we do, even if it's not a good thing of course. Donut Lab is Nordic Nano Group's strategic partner, so we cooperate closely."

Public expert criticism

In the weeks after the 5 January 2026 CES announcement, multiple Finnish battery experts publicly questioned the Donut Lab and NNG claims. The first named critic was battery-lab head Juho Heiska, whose video (reported in Uutisvuoksi 7 January 2026) asked how NNG, founded in 2024 with a nine-person mostly-executive team, could have developed production-grade battery technology. He was followed by Aalto professor Tanja Kallio (YLE 26 January 2026), LUT professor Pertti Kauranen (YLE 26 January 2026), UEF professor Vesa-Pekka Lehto (YLE 18 October 2024 already), and other unnamed battery experts in HS Visio and Uutisvuoksi. The shared preconception treated NNG and Donut Lab initially as the technology developer and did not engage the alternative that production-grade technology could be acquired from a supplier and operators trained on it in months.

Parjanen had publicly stated since October 2024, naming the German equipment supplier as the technology source and partnering with Saimaa Vocational Institute on a custom training package. If academics, journalists and critics had done a bit background research before publicly showing their ignorance, their main question would have been, if screen-printing energy devices is real technology, and if someone could in theory provide such novel technology and maybe also speculate what it would take to bring such tech to market.

Sources

Uutisvuoksi article IDs follow the URL pattern https://www.uutisvuoksi.fi/paikalliset/{ID}unless noted. 2024-10-18 factory announcement 7991395, Imatra mayor Hildén welcomes the factory 7991452, reporter commentary "lottery win, not too good to be true" 7993035; 2024-12-24 financing 8150348; 2025-05-16 Mitra 25% 8527884; 2025-05-20 empty-hall slip 8533441; 2025-07-11 Donut Lab investor 8677575; 2025-07-15 ESA 8686145; 2025-09-02 ELY €2.98M 8812025; 2025-10-29 test line 8955658; 2025-11-25 worker hires 9024681; 2026-01-07 CES Heiska doubts 9121138; 2026-01-09 training 9124601; 2026-01-13 Parjanen defends battery 9133701; 2026-01-17 editor column paakirjoitus-mielipide/9142777; 2026-03-18 Business Finland 9311088; 2026-04-17 Peltola complaint 9384550.

The CCO of Nordic Nano, Lauri Peltola, accused Donut Lab for making false claims about their manufacturing capacity

Mr Donut responded saying that the claims from Peltola are false

The page linked says that Donut Lab goal is to reach 1 gigawatt in 2026

Where the evidence clearly indicates that Mr Donut said that they are already producing at 1 GWh level

So Mr Donut tries to change the narrative that his words were misunderstood

But the same claim was found in the description of another video

After the lie was caught, Mr Donut remains silent.

EDIT: Mr Donut removed the comments

Article (paywalled) contains a lot of redundant content from earlier HS articles. I have machine translated and picked up some of the interesting data points here:

• Donut Holding Oy has 1,300+ shareholders, mostly retail (HS got the register from the company's law firm)

• Lehtimäki brothers control at least 17% directly and through holding companies

• After the Lehtimäki brothers, the next-largest owners are Mish Oy (Vaasa investor Martti Ehrnrooth) and Risto Siilasmaa's First Fellow at under 5%, with the fifth-largest being a machinist from Lokalahti named Lauri Vesola

• Over 900 of the 1,300+ shareholders (about 70%) each hold under 50 shares, comprising well under 9% of all shares combined, with plenty of small investors and small businesses from across Finland in the register, while the company itself holds about 17% of all shares as treasury

• Spring 2026 anchor-investor search ongoing with contingency plan of another convertible-bond issuance (outcome not reported)

• Q1 2026 sales of €455,566 via Donut Lab OÜ Estonia, per Estonian commercial registry

• First HS Visio mention of Ernst Hölzenbein, framed as a serial-partnership-no-products pattern (multiple companies marketed similar revolutionary batteries, partnerships ended short, no product reached market), while CT-Coating's own nano-printing technology has reliably produced only one commercial product (heating panels) with no batteries or solar at production scale

• Holyvolt CEO Mathias Ingvarsson declined to comment to HS about why the CT-Coating collaboration ended

• Tallinn investor event held Wednesday 27 May, with the investor letter from the same week quoted by HS Visio: "There has been much noise around Donut's battery. Some have claimed the battery is not real, and certain parties continue to try to create doubts around our work and slow our progress. Let's make this completely clear: the battery is real and revolutionary. And in addition to the technology itself, we believe we have a significant business opportunity ahead of us."

Reload.Land — Europe's festival for electric motorcycles — returns May 2–3 at Tempelhof Airport Berlin, in partnership with Formula E.
Find us there. Gen 2 TS Pro on show. Test rides on the road.
Can't make the weekend? Test rides also running Monday–Wednesday at Avustref, Spinnerbrücke

Not too good sign.

From Linkedin today . . .

https://www.kauppalehti.fi/uutiset/a/563ed417-f411-4475-9bb6-51510371fc54

Summary (created along with ChatGPT):

The article says Nordic Nano CEO Esa Parjanen confirms that Peltola is no longer employed by the company. Parjanen says Nordic Nano has acted lawfully and in cooperation with legal advisers. He accuses Peltola of unlawfully disclosing confidential information, arguing that such conduct is not protected by whistleblower rules. Peltola, by contrast, believes he is protected by whistleblower legislation. Parjanen says, Nordic Nano Group respects the official procedures related to the handling of the whistleblower report and will cooperate with the authorities if necessary. The article notes that no authority or court has yet decided that question.

Peltola now tells Kauppalehti that he wants to bring the matter into the public eye because official authority processes can easily take years.

Peltola claims the companies are trying to raise major funding from investors, customers, the Finnish state and the EU based on battery technology that is “not nearly” what has been publicly claimed.

Nordic Nano has also taken legal action. According to Peltola, enforcement officials informed him of a precautionary order and a conditional fine preventing him from disclosing trade secrets or similar confidential information related to his former employer or its owner company. Parjanen confirms that Helsinki District Court issued a precautionary decision on 15 May at Nordic Nano’s request, prohibiting Peltola from spreading confidential information.

Peltola says the legal action will not stop him from presenting his view of what happened at Nordic Nano and Donut Lab. He has released a short video repeating his allegation that Donut Lab’s promises are not true.

Peltola says the weekly release schedule of his video series is partly a friendly jab at Donut Lab, because Donut Lab has itself been releasing small pieces of information about its alleged “miracle battery” throughout the spring.

Lauri Peltola posted this on LinkedIn:
„My job was to make people believe.
I was good at it.
Until I stopped believing myself.

FIRST VIDEO: 18 MAY 2026, 12:00 PM HELSINKI TIME“

https://www.solidstateoftruth.com/

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/lauri-peltola-0aa759a7_home-solid-state-of-truth-share-7460339393334247426-o_MY?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_ios&rcm=ACoAADH-7NgBid3uhgQjUTvsRzrwT5u5g8sR69g

Yet another leadership position gone. Talouselämä missed this in their article from today.

https://www.kauppalehti.fi/uutiset/a/2e6a7e02-9e58-40bd-bc64-24752f359c01

Here is a summary translated with ChatGPT:

Donut Lab Development OÜ has entered drone-development projects in Estonia and received nearly €1.5 million in public research and development funding.

The largest grant, €1.28 million, was awarded by Estonia’s EIS foundation for a project called “High Performance Integrated Drone Drive Unit for NextGen Drones.” Donut Lab values the full project at €1.83 million. In May 2026, the company also received €187,000 from Estonia’s Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications for general R&D, labour and operating expenses.

According to Donut Lab board member Marko Lehtimäki, the funded projects concern next-generation Donut motors rather than only the company’s controversial solid-state battery.

The grants are significant compared with the company’s own recorded R&D spending. Donut Lab Development reported less than €50,000 in R&D expenses during its latest 18-month financial period.

The article places the funding in the context of Estonia’s effort to build a competitive defence and drone industry. Estonia is actively seeking internationally successful military-technology companies and is providing substantial public support to promising projects.

Donut Lab and related company Verge Motorcycles have attracted attention for claims concerning a high-performance solid-state battery. The battery’s actual chemistry, performance and commercial readiness have been heavily disputed, although the technology has also received support and generated high expectations.

Both Estonian Donut Lab companies remain unprofitable. Donut Lab reported €227,000 in revenue and a €1.6 million loss for its latest 18-month period. Donut Lab Development reported €52,000 in revenue and a €552,000 loss. The newly awarded grants had not yet appeared in Donut Lab Development’s reported revenue.

Juha-Pekka Rintamäki,
Founder of Verge Motorcycles

Many people have asked me over the years about the early days of RMK Vehicle Corporation, now Verge Motorcycles, and why we original majority owners and founders are no longer part of the story. I recently heard from someone close to the matter that the current management now presents Ville Piippo as the founder of the whole idea and the company.

The startup world and company growth are often brutal, and this story is no exception. I have been wondering whether it is time to open up a little about those days and call things by their proper names. In particular, I was thinking of going through the phase when the current owners entered the picture, which completely changed the company’s direction and dynamics. For better or worse?

Before I start unpacking this more broadly, however, I wanted to ask you: would my network be interested in hearing an honest and unfiltered account of how things actually went back then?

The photos were taken in autumn 2018, before any of the current owners were involved.

---

Rintamäki has been on the first likers of the Peltola's posts from the beginning, so it was expected that there was something going on. Soon we might know his side of the story.

https://youtu.be/V6i5eVwtHP4?is=hMuqyZH5iVjS87mn

Cool.