Monday, September 2, 2019

"‘The Disruptors’ — Unique insight into Europe’s 1,600 AI startups (Part 2)"

I was about to headline this link "The 1600 AI Startups you must know" to play off the "672 thought leaders you must follow on Twitter" or the "37,000 young people who want to take your job" articles but then realized our wary-yet-intrigued readers are not the type of people who respond well to someone saying they 'must' do anything.

From MMC Ventures:

“One in 12 startups is now an ‘AI startup’. Europe’s 1,600 AI startups — ‘The Disruptors’ — are maturing, bringing creative destruction to new industries, and raising larger amounts of capital at higher valuations. The UK is the powerhouse of European AI but Germany and France may extend their influence. Securing talent, accessing training data and moving from ‘lab to live’ are entrepreneurs’ greatest challenges.”

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For our groundbreaking State of AI 2019 Report, we undertook a unique, company-by-company analysis of AI startups across Europe, and spoke with hundreds of AI entrepreneurs, to deliver unprecedented insight into the European AI ecosystem.

Previously (‘Part 1′) we revealed that one in 12 European start-ups have embraced AI; the European ecosystem is maturing (one in six AI companies is a ‘growth’-stage company); and the UK is the powerhouse of European AI with a third of the Continent’s AI start-ups.
Today (‘Part 2’) we reveal 12 further findings. We explore how:
  • Nine in ten AI startups address a specific business function or sector (‘vertical’). Just one in ten provides a ‘horizontal’ AI technology.
  • A quarter of new AI startups are consumer companies, as entrepreneurs address or circumvent the ‘cold start’ data challenge.
  • Healthcare, financial services and retail are well served by AI startups. In manufacturing and agriculture, activity is modest relative to market opportunities.
  • Health & wellbeing is a focal point for AI entrepreneurship. In the next decade, developers will have a greater impact on the future of healthcare than doctors.
  • The UK is the heartland of European healthcare AI, with a third of the Continent’s startups.
  • Marketing and customer service departments enjoy a rich ecosystem of suppliers.
  • An influx of AI startups supporting operations teams is driving increasing process automation.
  • AI companies raise larger amounts of capital at higher valuations, due to technology fundamentals and extensive capital supply.
  • Core technology providers attract a disproportionate share of funding.
  • AI entrepreneurs’ key challenges are the availability of talent, access to training data and the difficulty of creating production-ready technology.
1. Nine in ten AI startups are B2B… 
Nine in ten of Europe’s 1,600 AI startups are business-to-business (B2B) vendors, developing and selling solutions to other companies. Just one in ten sells directly to consumers (B2C).
Source: MMC Ventures, Beauhurst, Crunchbase, Tracxn
Historically, B2C AI has been inhibited by the ‘cold start’ data challenge. Training AI algorithms typically requires extensive data. While B2B companies can analyse the large data sets of the businesses they serve, customer-facing companies usually begin without large volumes of consumer data to analyse (in the absence of public or permissioned data). B2C companies typically deploy AI later, as their user bases and data sets grow....MORE
Again, Part I is here.
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