Heidel­berg — The AI rese­arch and appli­ca­tion startup Aleph Alpha recei­ves 23 million euros in its second round of finan­cing. As Aleph Alpha’s first insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tor, LEA Part­ners welco­mes the new Series A inves­tor set with Early­bird VC, Lake­star and UVC Part­ners on board. Toge­ther with the seed finan­cing of €5.3 million in Novem­ber 2020, the total finan­cing volume grows to €28.3 million. With the newfound and repea­ted support of Europe’s leading deep-tech inves­tors, Aleph Alpha can further acce­le­rate the inde­pen­dent deve­lo­p­ment of cutting-edge AI systems and conti­nue to expand its team of world-class AI rese­ar­chers, engi­neers and deli­very professionals.

Euro­pean AI Powerhouse

Head­quar­te­red in Heidel­berg, Germany, Aleph Alpha was foun­ded in 2019 by AI serial entre­pre­neur Jonas Andru­lis and Samuel Wein­bach. They bring toge­ther a high-cali­ber team of AI veterans, serial entre­pre­neurs, and a new gene­ra­tion of AI engi­neers coming from CERN, Apple, DARPA, and other pres­ti­gious orga­niza­ti­ons, who toge­ther are deve­lo­ping and opera­tio­na­li­zing large-scale AI systems towards gene­ra­lizable AI. Aleph Alpha will offer GPT-3-like text, image, and stra­tegy AI models via an API in the future. These will enable part­ners from the public and private sectors to moder­nize exis­ting busi­ness models as well as deve­lop new, inno­va­tive busi­ness models in data-based value creation.

Aleph Alpha’s commu­nity-driven and inter­di­sci­pli­nary approach ensu­res that tecto­nic shifts in the global AI land­scape are aligned with Euro­pean values and ethi­cal stan­dards. Aleph Alpha and its part­ner network are crea­ting a strong and sove­reign Euro­pean inno­va­tion network that supports more equi­ta­ble access to modern AI rese­arch — with the goal of coun­tering the ongo­ing “de-demo­cra­tiza­tion”, mono­po­liza­tion, and loss of control and trans­pa­rency in the global AI industry.

Jonas Andru­lis, CEO and foun­der of Aleph Alpha:

“Aleph Alpha’s mission is to enable acces­si­bi­lity, usabi­lity, and inte­gra­tion of large-scale, Euro­pean, multi­l­in­gual, and multi­mo­dal AI models along the lines of GPT‑3 and DALL‑E by driving inno­va­tion for explaina­bi­lity, adapt­a­tion, and inte­gra­tion. The funding signi­fi­cantly acce­le­ra­tes the process of brin­ging the latest gene­ra­tion of AI tech­no­logy into use and ensu­res digi­tal sove­reig­nty for our public and private sector part­ners in Europe and beyond.”

Secu­ring Euro­pean AI sovereignty

From model trai­ning to appli­ca­tion, Aleph Alpha guaran­tees the data sove­reig­nty of indi­vi­du­als and orga­niza­ti­ons and returns control of norma­tive value alignment to the deve­lo­per. This makes Aleph Alpha an indis­pensable success factor for the digi­tiza­tion of the private and public sectors in Europe.

Nils Seele, Prin­ci­pal at LEA Partners:

“When we first met Jonas and the team, it was imme­dia­tely clear that we shared a common vision toward gene­ra­li­zing arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence. For LEA, as the lead inves­tor in the seed funding round, it’s great to see the impres­sive setting that has come toge­ther over the last few months to help the Aleph Alpha team build Euro­pean sove­reig­nty in AGI.”

A New Age of Human-Machine Interaction

Aleph Alpha’s gene­ra­li­zing AI models extend and enhance human capa­bi­li­ties in deal­ing with any type of data. The tech­no­logy is capa­ble of under­stan­ding and gene­ra­ting complex text based on mini­mal human input and acts as a virtual assistant in a new gene­ra­tion of human-machine inter­ac­tion. Such deep contex­tual under­stan­ding was previously the exclu­sive domain of human experts. These new func­tion­a­li­ties will trans­form human inter­ac­tions with infor­ma­tion by struc­tu­ring know­ledge, respon­ding to complex tasks, or trans­forming, summa­ri­zing, and struc­tu­ring highly specia­li­zed, bureau­cra­tic, or legal language into easily unders­tood ever­y­day language.

About Aleph Alpha

Aleph Alpha is a Heidel­berg-based AI rese­arch and appli­ca­tion company that rese­ar­ches, deve­lops, and opera­tio­na­li­zes gene­ra­li­zing AI models for text, vision, and stra­tegy at scale to ensure digi­tal sove­reig­nty for public and private sector partners.

About LEA

LEA Part­ners, as an entre­pre­neu­rial equity part­ner, supports foun­ders and manage­ment teams at diffe­rent stages of deve­lo­p­ment in their growth and achie­ve­ment of a leading market posi­tion. Based in Karls­ruhe, one of the largest tech­no­logy clus­ters in Europe, LEA Part­ners has mana­ged invest­ments in nume­rous tech­no­logy compa­nies since 2002. With 260 million euros of capi­tal under manage­ment and two invest­ment vehic­les, LEA Part­ners is able to contri­bute substan­tial added value to the deve­lo­p­ment of tech­no­logy compa­nies with a strong network of opera­tio­nal sector experts as well as stra­te­gic part­ners. www.leapartners.de