The UK has the highest number of generative AI (GenAI) startups in Europe and Israel, followed by Germany and Israel, according to a study by venture capital firm Accel. ‘Israel.
Accel analyzed 221 GenAI startups and found that 30% of them were founded in the UK, 14% in Germany and 13% in Israel, while France hosted 11% and the Netherlands 6%.
GenAI is an artificial intelligence capable of generating text, images, videos or other data, based on models developed from enormous amounts of information.
Britain’s leading universities, the creation of AI company Deepmind in 2010 and investment by US tech giants in the country have helped boost Britain’s status in AI.
Despite this, GenAI companies founded in France are leading fundraising, attracting $2.29 billion, followed by the UK with $1.15 billion, according to Accel.
Mistral, headquartered in Paris and widely seen as a European rival to OpenAI, last week raised 600 million euros ($644 million) at a valuation of 5.8 billion euros.
In 2023, GenAI startups have raised more than $25 billion in funding globally, and that figure is expected to reach around $45 billion this year, according to Accel.
“By taking a closer look at the roots of these companies, we begin to see where the key GenAI talent hubs are in the region and the common paths the founders are taking,” said Harry Nelis, partner at Accel.
A quarter of startups have at least one founder who has worked at Alphabet, Apple, Amazon, DeepMind, Meta, or Microsoft, and more than a third have held positions at academic institutions, he said.
A quarter of the founders were educated at British universities such as the University of Cambridge, Imperial College London, University College London and the University of Oxford, Accel said.
($1 = 0.9304 euros) (Reporting by Supantha Mukherjee in Stockholm; Editing by Mark Potter)
