Sifted - DeepMind’s founder factory

Good morning there,

This morning Kai Nicol-Schwarz published a list of former employees of AI lab DeepMind who’ve carved out paths as founders. I dig into where they’re building below, and how the AI flywheel is well and truly spinning in Europe.

Elsewhere today:

• Cultivated meat vs European regulators
• AI surgery startup Caresyntax raises $180m from backers including BlackRock

— Tom Nugent, newsletter editor

DeepMind’s founder factory

DeepMind represents ground zero for European AI research and commercialisation, pre-dating Facebook Artificial Intelligence Research (FAIR) and OpenAI — and today it’s turned into a breeding ground for a new generation of founders.

Reporter Kai Nicol-Schwarz has found 12 former employees now working on their own ventures in Europe; half of them are based in London, DeepMind’s birthplace. 

Other former employees are building in Prague, Porto and Berlin; there’s also Parisian pair Mistral (cofounded by former DeepMind research scientist Arthur Mensch) and H (founded by Karl Tuyls, Laurent Sifre, Julien Perolat and Daan Wierstra, former scientists at DeepMind). Those two companies have raised two of the biggest rounds in European tech this year.

Zoom out: The AI flywheel is spinning fast in Europe. A few months ago I wrote that a quarter of the 221 GenAI startups in Europe analysed by US VC Accel and data platform Dealroom have one or more founders with experience at Google, DeepMind, Meta, Amazon, Microsoft or Apple.

Who else is doing it? A quick LinkedIn search throws up a handful of new founders who used to work at UK AI companies like PolyAI, Wayve and Stability AI. There are a couple who’ve left German large language model maker Aleph Alpha to found their own companies, while talent from Meta’s FAIR (which has a large research hub in Paris) has created hot property startups like clinician assistant platform Nabla. There are also OpenAI alumni building in Europe. 

The continent is in a fortunate spot to have world-leading AI hubs like DeepMind and FAIR on its home turf. With investor appetite still healthy for startups with pedigree at these Big Tech-funded labs, it looks like the list of founders coming from those companies will only get longer.

— Tom Nugent, newsletter editor

🇩🇪 Berlin-based Caresyntax, which is building an AI-driven data platform for surgery, has raised a $180m Series C extension from investors including BlackRock Innovation Capital.

• The round is made up of $80m in equity and $100m in debt — and is tied to specific milestones. The fresh funding tops up the startup’s $130m Series C, raised across two rounds in 2021, and takes its total equity funding to $220m.
• Caresyntax uses AI algorithms to make sense of data collected before, during and after an operation to help surgeons improve patient outcomes. It joins a string of notable raises for European startups developing tech for hospital operating theatres, amid increasing demands on global healthcare systems. 
• The company will use the funds to scale customer adoption in the US and EMEA region, develop AI applications and finance M&A opportunities. 

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🔬 Lab-grown meat startups across Europe raised $121m last year, according to Dealroom — but none of the companies in that cohort can sell their products for human consumption in the region because of regulation.

Investors and founders are concerned that’ll mean the continent loses its best talent — and that companies working on cultivated meat here will be forced to pursue market opportunities in Singapore, the US or Israel, the only countries where you’re allowed to sell.

• “There's this perverse situation where Europe is so much more forward-thinking than most of the US when it comes to climate change and challenges around sustainability. The food system is one of the biggest burdens from greenhouse gas emissions and deforestation — but Europe is completely anti-application of biotechnology to food production,” says Anthony Chow, partner at publicly listed investment company Agronomics, which backs cellular agriculture.
• There has been some progress recently: last month, Meatly became the first company to get a cultivated meat product approved in the UK and aims to get its lab-grown chicken for pet food on shelves by the end of the year. French startup Gourmey submitted applications to UK and EU regulators for the authorisation of its cultivated duck product.
• Some investors think that will push others forward. “It’s a waterfall effect: other companies will probably surf the wave of Gourmey and start applying with their dossiers, which is a really good thing [for the industry],” Matteo Leonardi, partner at foodtech VC Grey Silo Ventures, tells Sifted. 

This article first appeared in Sifted’s climate tech newsletter yesterday — sign up here.

🏖️ How to take your team on a workation.

Amsterdam-based Sling Money, an app that uses blockchain tech to make instant money transfers in different currencies, raised $15m in Series A funding. Union Square Ventures, Ribbit Capital and Slow Ventures led the round.

Nicosia-based Eschatology Entertainment, a game development studio, raised $11.3m in funding. KRAFTON Inc led the round and was joined by investors including GEM Capital and The Games Fund. 

Nottingham, UK-based Promethean Particles, which manufactures metal-organic frameworks for carbon capture, raised £8m in Series A funding. Mercia Ventures and Aramco Ventures led the round and were joined by investors including Foresight, the University of Nottingham, TSP Ventures and the British Business Bank.

London-based Trumpet, which creates digital workspaces for sales teams that track contact between buyers and sellers, raised $6.4m in funding. AlbionVC led the round and was joined by investors including Lightbird Ventures, Anamcara Capital and Triple Point Ventures.

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