Nordic Data & AI Weekly: A look at European AI talent, Nordic investment rounds, and all the latest news & resources
Recent funding, news, and resources for builders
Apologies for the absence of this newsletter in your inbox last week - efforts to distribute it were hindered by travel with a lot of interesting meetings in London, and focus on the launch of a new J12 initiative. Expanding on the latter, we at J12 have recently launched NEXUS, the catalyst program to build Europe’s next category-leading data and AI companies.
The program is designed to support pre-seed and seed stage founders through access to capital, workshops, 1:1 office hours and mentorship from founders, operators, and technical leads from companies such as Google Deepmind, MongoDB, GitHub, Meta and Klarna. Participating founders will gain insights and relationships that will enhance their technical development, GTM, organisation and culture, and ability to attract capital.
The inaugural cohort this autumn will consist of 7-10 selected founding teams, each receiving up to a €1m upfront investment from J12.
Get in touch if you are (or would like to recommend) a:
a) founding team with a concept or product leveraging or enabling data
b) second-time founder or senior executive looking to build
c) domain expert or researcher in data and AI keen to get hands-on
Read more about why we created NEXUS and get in touch at: https://www.j12ventures.com/nexus
🇪🇺 In line with the mission above, here are some of the top picks from the last couple of weeks highlighting the AI talent and companies being built in Europe…
Quick reads on value creation
Things to know, whether you are building 🛠 or investing 💰
💪 Greylock Partners on “The New New Moats”, how the value in the AI stack is shifting towards applications, and how to build defensibility.
💡 a16z on 4 key potential advancements in the field of LLMs that will revolutionise the way businesses integrate AI into their operations and product development.
📊 Report from GP Bullhound on the state of AI, where things may be heading, and navigating investments in the space.
🤓 An interview with Marc Andreessen about AI and how you change the world.
🤔 From Harvard Business Review - should you start a generative AI company?
🎨 Figma with a look at how AI will change how and what we design, as well as who is involved.
📈 While generative AI is causing fears of mass layoffs, a study of several EU countries found the deep-learning boom of the 2010s actually created job opportunities.
Related: Harvard Business Review with the view that companies that replace people with AI will get left behind.
🧒 Some tips for the youthful…
Recent AI funding in the Nordics & Baltics
🇸🇪 🇳🇴 🇩🇰 🇫🇮 🇪🇪 🇱🇻 🇱🇹 🇮🇸
🇸🇪 Neko Health: Preventative healthcare via full-body scans backed by AI software - helping doctors detect skin conditions, cancer, cardiovascular disease, and diabetes, among other metabolic syndromes. Raised $65m from Lakestar, Atomico, and General Catalyst (link).
🇸🇪 Conifer Vision: A working system for inventory of forest seedlings, species in adult forests and deviation identification with the help of aerial imagery, artificial intelligence, semi supervised machine learning and image analysis. Raised an undisclosed amount from undisclosed investors.
🇳🇴 Pickr.ai: Robotic piece-picking solutions for customers preferring simplicity, reliability and increased productivity in their warehouses. Raised $740k from angels.
🇳🇴 Intelecy: Easy-to-use no-code AI platform for predictive analytics and process optimisation in industrial IoT. Raised $3.54m from Yara Growth Ventures (link).
🇳🇴 Metric: Marketing solution that provides personalised and live recommendations on what to market, when, and in which channels. Raised $930k from Try-Huset.
🇩🇰 Molecular Quantum Solutions: Next generation research simulations for pharma, biotech and chemicals. Raised $655k from Scale Capital (link).
🇫🇮 Algorithmiq: Combining expertise in quantum information, complex systems, and computational physics to develop algorithms to solve life-science problems on near-term quantum computers. Raised $14.98m from Inventure, Tesi, Presidio Ventures, and angels (link).
If there is some relevant Nordic AI news or funding that is missing from this newsletter, feel free to share by replying directly or emailing nordicaiweekly@substack.com and I’ll look to spread the word next week. Thanks!
News from the wider world 🌍 🌎 🌏
🧠 The latest from OpenAI…
OpenAI announced that its first international office will be in London.
The launch of a new initiative called "Superalignment" to address the challenge of aligning superintelligent AI systems with human intent. More from TechCrunch here.
💪 Google DeepMind’s CEO says its upcoming Gemini system will eclipse ChatGPT.
💰Databricks acquired MosaicML for $1.3bn, enabling Databricks to provide generative AI tooling alongside its existing multicloud offerings.
A couple of big funding rounds to note…
Inflection AI, the year-old startup behind Chatbot Pi, raised $1.3bn from Microsoft, Nvidia and billionaires Reid Hoffman, Bill Gates and Eric Schmidt. More here.
AI video startup runway raised $141m from Google, Nvidia, Salesforce, and others.
On safety and regulation ⛑ 👩🏻⚖️
🇪🇺 European VCs and tech firms have signed an open letter warning against over-regulation of AI in draft EU laws. More here.
🇯🇵 Japan is leaning towards softer AI rules than those in the EU.
If you know someone that would be interested in the contents of this newsletter, please forward it onwards.