AI took the funding spotlight in Europe last year. Investment in the sector represented around a fifth of total funding at $9bn, largely driven by the recent boom in generative AI. This year is showing no sign of a slowdown, with AI monster rounds ranging from French startup H’s $220m seed round to Mistral’s latest €600m fundraise.
Many AI companies in Europe are vocal about the region’s dense talent pool, and often cite access to top scientists and engineers among the reasons to keep operating on this side of the Atlantic. According to global VC Atomico, Europe’s AI talent base has grown more than 10 times in the past decade to over 120k professionals currently employed in AI roles — more than the US.
Sifted found out which AI startups have hired the most, across all roles, in the past 12 months, using data from Dealroom, LinkedIn and from the companies. To avoid results being skewed by early-stage startups making lots of hires while growing quickly, businesses needed to have raised at least $30m and have at least 50 employees.
Mistral AI
HQ city: Paris, France
Founded: 2023
Headcount growth over the last 12 months: 378% to 67 employees (according to LinkedIn data; Sifted contacted Mistral but didn’t get a response)
One of France’s most prominent startups, Mistral was founded by former Meta and DeepMind employees just over a year ago with the promise of creating a European AI champion that could compete against US tech giants like Google, Meta or OpenAI. The company builds GenAI models — the same technology that powers ChatGPT — and has garnered plenty of VC attention, raising nearly €1bn in equity since it launched. In June, it closed a €468m equity funding round at a €5.8bn valuation, making it one of France’s best-funded private tech companies.
AutogenAI
HQ city: London, UK
Founded: 2022
Headcount growth over the last 12 months: 366% to 140 employees (confirmed by the company)
AutogenAI leverages artificial intelligence, specifically natural language processing, to automate bid writing for enterprises — from drafting and editing to identifying how to improve a proposal based on different scoring criteria. The company has grown fast since it launched in 2022, raising a total $65m in two rounds and opening offices in the US and Australia.
Kittl
HQ city: Berlin, Germany
Founded: 2020
Headcount growth over the last 12 months: 242% to 120 employees (confirmed by the company)
Kittl provides an online platform for professional graphic designers, which includes templates and design tools like quote creators and background removers. It offers several AI-powered products, notably a GenAI image generator powered by OpenAI’s Dall-E model. The startup has raised $50m to date, from investors including Left Lane Capital and Speedinvest, and counts organisations like Warner Bros, Netflix and Penguin Random House among its clients.
Qdrant
HQ city: Berlin, Germany
Founded: 2021
Headcount growth over the last 12 months: 225% to 65 employees (confirmed by the company)
Qdrant offers an open-source search tool for complex databases that are used for AI applications. It stores data as vectors — multi-dimensional representations of features or attributes which can better reflect a highly complex and diverse dataset. The company raised a $28m Series A at the beginning of this year, bringing total funding to $37m to date.
Tacto
HQ city: Munich, Germany
Founded: 2020
Headcount growth over the last 12 months: 135% to 73 employees (confirmed by the company)
Tacto’s platform provides AI-powered software to help SMEs manage their supply chain and procurement processes, from automating regulatory compliance — for example with ESG requirements — to identifying potential cost savings. The Munich-based startup raised €50m in December last year, attracting a roster of high-profile backers including Sequoia, Index Ventures and Cherry Ventures.
Dexory
HQ city: London, UK
Founded: 2015
Headcount growth over the last 12 months: 124% to 138 employees (confirmed by the company)
Atomico-backed logistics startup Dexory addresses the challenges of managing warehouses. Through the combination of an AI-powered analytics platform and autonomous robots on the ground, the company helps businesses track goods, identify and locate items and access information on stock levels. It closed a $19m Series A last year and serves high-profile distribution companies like Maersk and Menzies Aviation.
Chemify
HQ city: Glasgow, UK
Founded: 2022
Headcount growth over the last 12 months: 108% to 79 employees (confirmed by the company)
Spun out of 15 years of research at the University of Glasgow, Chemify intends to use robotics and AI to digitise chemical processes and fast-track the creation of new complex molecules for industrial partners in pharmaceuticals and biotechnology. Last year, the company raised a $43m Series A.
ANYbotics
HQ city: Zurich, Switzerland
Founded: 2016
Headcount growth over the last 12 months: 100% to 200 employees (confirmed by the company)
Swiss startup ANYbotics, which spun out of public research university ETH Zurich, builds four-legged AI robots for industrial use, which can carry out inspections in sectors like oil and gas, mining, chemicals and utilities. Its clients include companies like Petronas, Shell, SLB, Siemens Energy and BASF; its $50m Series B, which it closed last year, was led by Walden Catalyst and NGP Capital.
Orbem
HQ city: Munich, Germany
Founded: 2019
Headcount growth over the last 12 months: 100% to 120 employees (confirmed by the company)
Founded in 2019 as a spinout from the Technical University of Munich, Orbem has created an MRI technology that it says is faster and more efficient thanks to AI — and which can, as a result, scan new biological samples like food, plants and materials. The company’s product is currently used in hatcheries to determine the sex of chicks based on egg scans. It last raised a €30m Series A in 2023.
Aleph Alpha
HQ city: Heidelberg, Germany (confirmed by the company)
Founded: 2019
Headcount growth over the last 12 months: 93% to 147 employees
Aleph Alpha builds LLMs for enterprises and governments and is the poster child for AI innovation in Germany. In November last year, the company raised $500m in one of Europe’s biggest AI rounds. While the company has grown its headcount significantly in the last year, founder Jonas Andrulis doesn’t want Aleph Alpha to scale to become a huge company: “I want to contribute to the fact that there’s technological sovereignty, and I want to be the smallest company that can do that,” he told Sifted in a November interview.
Read the orginal article: https://sifted.eu/articles/ai-europe-startup-grow/
