During this year’s virtual Swedish Innovation Days, the updated version of the European AI landscape was presented. The first version of the landscape was first launched at the end of 2020 and included over 500 startups from Germany, France and Sweden. The collaboration is now excited to welcome startups from the Netherlands and soon Norway as well. The goal of the landscape is to give companies guidance and promising startups a visible platform, benefiting both parties and driving the adoption of AI. Additionally, it demonstrates the innovative strength of European startups and the willingness of European countries to collaborate in order to gain technological sovereignty.
Europe’s artificial intelligence startup scene is continuously growing and more and more countries are collaborating to promote cross-border exchange, Europe’s leading innovation and startup hubs appliedAI by UnternehmerTUM, Ignite Sweden, AI Swedenand Hub France IA first came together to start the initial steps in mapping the AI startup ecosystem in Europe. This map is now being drawn more precisely by the support of The Netherlands AI Coalition, NORA (Norwegian Artificial Intelligence Research Consortium), Cluster for Applied AI and Norwegian Open AI Lab.
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 and their headquarters or founder are based in Europe. Each startup was put forth and verified by the organization(s) of its respective country.
Innovation made in The Netherlands and Norway
During the launch event 127 new Dutch AI startups were added to the landscape. “It’s great that the Netherlands is participating in the European AI startup landscape. It’s a fantastic way to promote our selected startups on an international level and thereby increase their access to potential customers, partners and investors”, says Anita Lieverdink, from NL AIC. Additionally, the newly joined Norwegian partners put forth their call to action during the event and are now accepting applications from AI startups throughout Norway. The landscape will continue to grow in the coming months with the new Norwegian startups.
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.
In addition to working together to map the AI Startup ecosystem in Europe, the contributing members work together to foster collaboration within the ecosystem. One such example is the European AI Matchday hosted by Ignite Sweden. With 114 meetings between 21 corporates and 78 AI startups from France, Germany and Sweden, the European AI Startup Matchday highlighted the importance of coming together to strengthen innovation within AI in Europe. The landscape collaborators plan to bring more such events to life in the coming year bringing in even more corporates and startups from around Europe.
“The appliedAI initiative is excited to have Norway and The Netherlands join our European Landscape. Growing the landscape to include more countries not only helps to provide a clearer picture of the AI Startup Ecosystem in Europe but also creates more opportunities for collaboration amongst the top leading AI organizations. Partnering with Hub France IA, Ignite Sweden and AI Sweden over the past years has led to multiple new international projects outside of the Landscape mapping and has created networking opportunities, not only for appliedAI but also for our partners and German startups. We look forward to this level of collaboration with our new Dutch and Norwegian partners.” – Andreas Liebl, appliedAI Initiative by UnternehmerTUM
