On May 22, 2024, Arthur Mensch, founder of Mistral AI, a French artificial intelligence startup, attended the Viva Technology exhibition held at the Versailles Exhibition Center in Paris, France.
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A new report from venture capital firm Accel shows that most of Europe’s most well-funded generative artificial intelligence companies are founded by entrepreneurs with experience from U.S. tech giants.
The report, produced in partnership with Dealroom, found that a quarter of 221 generative AI companies in Europe and Israel have worked in apple, Amazondeep thinking, Yuan, Google and Microsoft.
In terms of venture capital raised, this number rises to more than a third (38%) of the top 40 generative AI companies in Europe and Israel, and in terms of funding levels, the top 10 generative AI companies The figure for smart companies rises to 60%.
Harry Nelis, general partner at Accel, told CNBC that tech giants are a natural catalyst for new generative AI companies because these companies “have been leaders in artificial intelligence and…have capabilities in computing, data, and… When it comes to money.
“They’re really smart because they’ve seen how being early in this space can lead to a huge competitive advantage,” he said, adding that for people with an “entrepreneurial mindset,” it’s a creative Your own genAI’s “Golden Opportunity” adventure.
Europe’s most well-funded genAI startup
| company | founding country | founding city | Total funds raised |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mistral | France | Paris | $1.1 billion |
| Alef Alpha | Germany | heidelberg | $641 million |
| Face hugging | France | Paris | $396 million |
| Ojin | France | Paris | $335 million |
| H | France | Paris | $235 million |
| comprehensive | U.K. | London | $157 million |
| Stable artificial intelligence | U.K. | London | $151 million |
| Gather artificial intelligence | U.K. | London | $118 million |
source: accelerator
In its research, Accel defines generative AI as “an emerging AI frontier that uses models trained on large data sets of content media… to create new things rather than just analyze existing things.”
Nellis noted that many of the largest U.S. tech companies have made early moves in artificial intelligence, and that Europe is increasingly paying attention.
Google acquired British artificial intelligence laboratory DeepMind in 2014, and the company’s technology is now key to artificial intelligence products, including its Gemini generative artificial intelligence tool.
Meta, Facebook’s parent company, opened Fair’s European branch, Facebook AI Research, in Paris in 2015.
Many of the founders of prominent AI startups developing generative AI tools come from Google, DeepMind, and Meta.
For example, Mistral, a French startup backed by Microsoft, appointed former DeepMind artificial intelligence scientist Arthur Mensch as CEO. Co-founders Timothee Lacroix and Guillaume Lample both worked at Meta.
French artificial intelligence company H is backed by Amazon and co-founded by former DeepMind researchers Laurent Sifre and Karl Tuyls and former Stanford University student Charles Kantor.
Mistral has raised $1 billion in funding to date, while H, which is only a few months old, has raised $235 million, according to Accel.
Accel said Google is the largest producer of new generative AI startups in Europe and Israel, with 11.3% of generative AI company founders working for the tech giant.
DeepMind, owned by Google, ranks second with a 5% share of generative artificial intelligence companies. Meta ranks third with 4.1%.
Many founders of artificial intelligence are also professors
Accel noted that universities play an important role in creating generative AI startups. According to the report, many European universities now serve as so-called “founder factories” to train new startup founders.
More than one-third (38%) of companies have at least one founder who holds or has held a position in an academic institution, such as professor, researcher or lecturer.
Lourdes Agapito, co-founder of Synthesia, a British artificial intelligence company that uses generative artificial intelligence to eliminate the need for physical equipment in film production, is a professor of 3D vision at University College London.
She said her experience at UCL helped her connect with like-minded AI innovators.
While at University College London, Agapito met Synthesia co-founder Matthias Niessner and later co-founded the company with CEO Victor Riparbelli and COO Steffen Tjerrild.
“Looking back at Synthesia’s founding team, what’s special about us is that we complement each other so perfectly in terms of expertise,” Agapito told CNBC via email.
Agapito said being headquartered in London was another “key factor” in Synthesia’s early success.
Research by Accel found that UK universities are the most popular study destination for generative AI founders. The University of Cambridge produces the most creative AI companies, with 7.9% of founders studying there.
Ecole Polytechnique is the second-highest academic founder factory in Europe, with 7% of generative AI founders studying here.
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