Eliminating admin drag
How Hilde Kristin Njøten, co-founder at Vind AI, is saving 12 days annually by using Cardboard and eliminating admin drag.
About Vind AI
In the rapidly evolving Norwegian wind energy sector, where government ambitions to install 30 gigawatts of offshore wind power by 2040 are driving unprecedented growth, one startup has emerged as both a technological innovator and a case study in operational efficiency.
Vind AI, founded in June 2022 by former Spacemaker colleagues Hilde Kristin Njøten, Helene Margrethe Bøhler, and Jan-Tore Horn, has experienced remarkable growth—from securing their first ten customers within six months to expanding their team to 22 employees by 2025.
Their platform, which brings together 4000+ data layers and advanced optimization algorithms, enables wind project teams to assess business cases more than 5x faster.
But behind this technical innovation lies a less glamorous challenge that every scaling startup faces: managing the proliferating stack of software subscriptions that power modern businesses.
From Spacemaker alumni to wind industry disruptors
The journey began when three Spacemaker veterans identified an opportunity to revolutionize wind project development. Within their first six months, they had not only acquired ten customers but also secured three million kroner from notable investors including Anders Kvåle and Håvard Haukeland. By 2023, the company had attracted major European wind companies as clients, including Source Galileo, Corio Generation, and RWE.
The momentum continued with significant grant funding—11.9 million NOK in 2023 and another 10 million NOK from Innovation Norway for their onshore wind platform development. By 2025, with increasing customer revenues and a solid financial buffer, Vind AI had reached a comfortable position where they weren't actively seeking additional fundraising.
To hire or not to hire
As Hilde, Co-founder of Vind AI and handling CFO responsibilities, explains, success brought its own complications. "We're 22 now," she notes, "managing over 30 software subscriptions essential to their operations. The challenge wasn't just the number - it was the constant disruption."
"The receipts just pop into my inbox all the time and disturb me," Hilde recalls. Every month, their accounting team faced the tedious task of manually reclassifying each software expense in their system. "Before Cardboard, every month, the accountant had to go into our accounting software and change the accounting code of all the different software expenses."
For a company that had grown from three founders to 22 employees in under three years, this administrative burden was becoming a strategic question. Should they hire a dedicated finance person? Hilde found herself torn: "Sometimes you feel like, I need to hire someone on finance because you just want to remove it. But at the same time, it's also nice to sit on top of the numbers and really be able to know exactly every kroner that we're spending."
A solution that scales with ambition
The implementation of Cardboard's virtual card platform proved transformative for Vind AI. Rather than managing receipts across five physical cards distributed among team members, they now had a centralized system with dedicated virtual cards for each subscription.
The impact was immediate. "Me: two seconds. I'm gonna make a Cardboard card for you," became Hilde’s standard response to subscription requests. Pre-configured accounting codes eliminated the monthly reclassification work, and receipt collection became entirely automated.
The quantifiable results speak to the efficiency gains: approximately one day per month of financial administration eliminated, significant reduction in accounting fees, and most importantly, the ability to maintain financial oversight without additional headcount.
Building for the next phase
As Vind AI continues to expand its presence in the European wind market, having collaborated with major players like Eviny, Hafslund, and Hydro Rein, the operational efficiencies gained through tools like Cardboard become increasingly valuable.
"I realized, okay, I don't need to hire someone right now," Hilde reflects. "That's both good because it would cost me more money to hire someone, but also that I can actually sit on top of the details without spending time on it."
For other startups navigating similar growth trajectories, Hilde’s advice is clear: "I think it would be very nice to start with Cardboard in the very beginning." It's a lesson learned from experience - the administrative debt of manual processes compounds quickly as companies scale.
In an industry where Vind AI's technology helps developers reduce project risk and costs, it's fitting that they've applied the same principle to their own operations. As countries look to tap into wind energy, companies like Vind AI demonstrate that innovation isn't just about the technology you build—it's also about how efficiently you run the business behind it.
Join Vind AI and other tech companies who've already made the switch to Cardboard for managing their software subscriptions and online spend.
Your CFO (and your entire team) will thank you!