New European AI startup landscape presented by appliedAI, Ignite Sweden, AI Sweden, RISE Research Institutes of Sweden and Hub France IA
Garching near Munich, November 18 2020. During the virtual Sweden Innovation Days, the first version of a new European Artificial Intelligence (AI) startup landscape was presented, which includes over 500 startups from Germany, Sweden and France. Supported by the German Entrepreneurship and the German Accelerator program as well as Vinnova - Sweden's innovation agency - appliedAI, Ignite Sweden, AI Sweden, RISE Research Institutes of Sweden as well as Hub France IA developed a list of the top AI startups in their respective countries which have been combined to provide an overview of the best AI startups in Europe. The goal of this landscape is to give companies guidance and promising startups a visible platform, benefiting both parties and driving the adoption of AI. Following the initial launch of the landscape, which includes Germany, Sweden and France, other European AI initiatives will be asked to participate in order to grow the landscape to include startups from even more countries.
With the objective to foster and accelerate AI in Europe, appliedAI by UnternehmerTUM, Ignite Sweden, AI Sweden and RISE Research Institutes of Sweden came together to start the initial steps in mapping the AI startup ecosystem in Europe. By creating a centralized database of quality AI startups, corporations and SMEs will have easier access to AI partners they can trust. All startups displayed have AI at their core or exhibit a significant usage of AI. They were founded less than ten years ago or pivoted their core business model less than ten years ago and their headquarters or founder are based in Europe. Each startup was put forth and verified by the organization(s) of its respective country.
Key findings
A total of over 500 startups from over 25 industries met the analysts' high standards. A complete overview can be found here. Top represented industries are: Cross-industry (12.07%), Information Technology and Services (11.25%), Health and Pharma (9.41%), Transport and Mobility (7.57%), Retail and Commerce (7.36%), Manufacturing (6.34%), Enterprise Software (5.73%), Consulting (5.11%), Finance and Insurance (4.91%).
Motivation
There are several reasons why collaboration between startups and fully developed companies is a great option, not only for both parties – but for the economy as a whole: While almost all companies require a broad selection of AI solutions, startups focus on one specific niche. They provide the necessary solutions with the latest technology. Also, AI systems increase in performance with more data and applications. Therefore, in non-competitive use cases, a technology from a startup that supplies many companies tends to perform better than a stand-alone solution for one specific application in one company. Additionally, AI is a fundamentally challenging task to implement in the eye of a rapidly increasing need to develop new roles, adapt processes, collect data, hire new skills, or work in agile settings. Partnering with startups helps companies to get rid of some of these challenges and allows them to focus on value creation.
AI in Germany
Currently, the US and China are leading in the adoption of AI, so it’s no surprise that according to the yearly CB Insights AI 100 list – 65% of the best AI startups in the world are American. Although Germany is one of the world’s powerhouses of industry, with a particularly strong network of SMEs, it is underrepresented in the number of top AI startups. In 2018, not a single German AI startup made the CB Insights list. This alarmed the team at appliedAI, Germany's largest initiative for the application of AI technology. appliedAI works to bring together the best in artificial intelligence technology, companies, entrepreneurship, and academia to accelerate the adoption of AI. That is why appliedAI – with the help of 40+ partners from academia, government and industry – set out to create an ecosystem in which AI startups can flourish and help shape the future of AI for the benefit of society. With this in mind the first German AI Startup Landscape was created in 2018 with 132 startups mapped. In 2020, this German list has grown to include 247 startups from over 20 industries.
Methodology
The startups of the new European landscape are gathered from the different public and private (i.e. VC network) sources to create an extensive longlist. They are evaluated based on data, talent, AI methods, scalability, overall quality and subsequently clustered.The startups are initially rated (‘valid’, ‘upcoming’, ‘longlist’, and ‘discarded’) by AI Engineers and Strategists to create a shortlist. The shortlist is independently evaluated and rated by renowned contributors: Digital+ Partners, Earlybird Capital, eCAPITAL, Google, High-Tech Gründerfonds, HV Holtzbrinck Ventures, Lakestar, NVIDIA, Speedinvest, and Unternehmertum Venture Capital Partners. The feedback is synthesized and the final result is visualized.
