Machine Learning is the new buzz word and AI is the slang word these days. What does happen in this exiting field in Europe? Is AI common ground for all businesses or the exclusive territory for a few? Who has managed to validate a business model for autonomous vehicles or chatbots? What does data-driven or API-first business models look like?
3. 3
2016 EUROPEAN AI & DATA ANALYTICS REPORT FOREWORD
PARTNERS
There are many companies, small and big, trying to get on the Artificial
Intelligence bandwagon. Machine Learning is the new buzz word and AI is the
slang word these days. What does happen in this exiting field in Europe? Is AI
common ground for all businesses or the exclusive territory for a few? Who
has managed to validate a business model for autonomous vehicles or
chatbots?Whatdoesdata-drivenor API-firstbusinessmodelslook like?
With this report we want to provide a comprehensive review of investment in
startups and high-growth AI and Data Analytics companies across 22 countries
in Europe. Our aim is to provide data-driven guidance, insights, perspective
andinspirationto stakeholdersintheEuropeanscaleupecosystem.
Sincerely,
OmarMohout
4. 4
This report is part of a series of funding reports,
published both quarterly and yearly. Other
reports complement the series, focusing on
geographical markets and vertical industries such
as the HealthTech report, written in collaboration
with dashplus or the FinTech report in
collaborationwithEggsplore.
2016 EUROPEAN AI & DATA ANALYTICS REPORT ABOUT
This report is a snapshot in time, aimed at
analysing funding data, major trends within the
industry and the regions.
The following technologies are considered:
Artificial Intelligence, Data Analytics, APIs,
AutonomousVehiclesandChatbots.
Only deals of at least €750K are considered for
thisreport.
If you would like to provide your input for the
report, signal an omission of data or have any
other feedback, we would love to hear it. Just pop
an emailto omar.mohout@sirris.be
ABOUT THIS REPORT
5. HIGHLIGHTS 2016
5
• € 1.8B across 306 dealsin 22 countries;
• UK is leadingbothin fundingandin numberof deals;
• The city with the highest number of deals is London, followed by Paris
and Stockholm;
• Kima Venturesis themost activeAI venturefundinEurope;
• Content driven is the most popular business model used by AI and Data
Analyticsscaleups;
• No EuropeanAI scaleupwent IPO in 2016;
• 83% of EuropeanAI scaleupsare B2B oriented;
• 8 AI based companies raised twice capital in the same year: Recast.AI,
Navya Tech, Kreditech, Aire Labs, Nutmeg, Brainshake, Honeycomb and
Unomaly;
• 6% of foundersor CEOs are femalein theAI & DataAnalyticsdomain.
2016 EUROPEAN AI & DATA ANALYTICS REPORT HIGHLIGHTS
7. 7
€ 581
€ 278
€ 187
€ 110
€ 101
€ 100
€ 78
€ 72
€ 57
€ 41
€ 37
€ 23
€ 20
€ 18
€ 17
€ 16
UK
France
Germany
Belgium
Ireland
Sweden
Switzerland
Spain
Finland
Serbia
Netherlands
Portugal
Austria
Norway
Italy
Denmark
2016 EUROPEAN AI & DATA ANALYTICS REPORT
AMOUNT RAISED PER COUNTRY IN 2016*
*In millions
UK is leading in the data analytics and artificial
intelligence space, France and Germany are
following. The gap between the UK and
Germany / France is significant.
9. European scaleups together raise in average €
147 millionpermonth.
The high peak In October is due 11 deals that are
above € 10M (Navya Tech, Graphcore, Emarsys,
ContentSquare, Dataiku, Feedzai, Chronocam,
ZappiStore,Linkfluence,OpenGamma& Storyful).
4 companies (PayPlug, Uniti, Wealthify and
Storyzy) used crowdfunding to collectively raise
theamountof € 3M.
9
€ 115 € 116
€ 223
€ 155 € 158
€ 186
€ 120
€ 74
€ 112
€ 245
€ 203
€ 61
Jan. Feb. Mar. Apr. May Jun. Jul. Aug. Sep. Oct. Nov. Dec.
2016 EUROPEAN AI & DATA ANALYTICS REPORT
CAPITAL RAISED IN 2016*
*In millions
10. 10
23
25
27
23
19
29
25
20
26
34
37
18
Jan. Feb. Mar. Apr. May Jun. Jul. Aug. Sep. Oct. Nov. Dec.
2016 EUROPEAN AI & DATA ANALYTICS REPORT
NUMBER OF DEALS IN 2016
In average 26 deals of at least € 750K are closed in
Europe every month in the artificial intelligence
anddatadomain.
That’s significant higher than the 9 deals in
average per month for Internet of Things, the 3
deals for Virtual Reality, 1.5 deals for wearables
and 1.25 deals for 3D printing and only 1 deal for
Dronecompanies.
11. 11
€ 442
€ 310
€ 181
€ 164
€ 114
€ 73
€ 72
€ 61
€ 39
€ 37
AdTech
FinTech
Business Intelligence
HealthTech
Cybersecurity
HRTech
Automotive
Software development
eCommerce
MediaTech
2016 EUROPEAN AI & DATA ANALYTICS REPORT
AMOUNT RAISED PER INDUSTRY IN 2016*
*In millions
The top 10 industries count for 85% of all
capital raised.
AdTech (including marketing and sales
automation) is the number one industry that is
driven by data and algorithms.
A good example is Belgium based Showpad
that is implementing Artificial Intelligence in
their sales enabling solution. Or another
Belgian stronghold: SparkCentral, providing
customer service via social channels relying
increasingly on data crunching.
13. 13
37%
25%
19%
7%
4%
3%
3%
2%
Series A
Series C
Series B
Seed
Private Equity
Debt financing
Series D
Series E
2016 EUROPEAN AI & DATA ANALYTICS REPORT
DEAL TYPES IN 2016
Public funds
7%
Private funds
71%
Combination
Public/Private
22%
14. 14
2016 EUROPEAN AI & DATA ANALYTICS REPORT
AVERAGE FOUNDING YEAR
Finland
Norway
2010
Ireland
France
2011
Sweden
Belgium
UK
Switzerland
Spain
2012
Denmark
Netherlands
Germany
Italy
2013
Portugal
2014
To raise a series A in Europe, an AI or Data
Analyticscompanyneedsto be foundedin 2012.
It takes in average 4 (long!) years for these type of
companiesto raisesubstantialexternalfinancing.
There are exceptions, 15 scaleups are less than
one year old when they received significant
funding.
16. 1. London
2. Paris
3. Berlin
4. Stockholm
5. Dublin
6. Cambridge
7. Munich
8. Lausanne
9. Barcelona
10. Madrid
1. London
2. Paris
3. Dublin
4. Cambridge
5. Berlin
6. Stockholm
7. Southampton
8. Munich
9. Ghent
10. Madrid
16
2016 EUROPEAN AI & DATA ANALYTICS REPORT
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE CITIES 2016
NUMBER OF DEALS AMOUNT RAISED
London counts for 18% of all AI deals in Europe,
Paris for 12%, Berlin for 7% and Stockholm for
5%.
UK, Germany and Spain have multiple cities in the
top10 forAI.
17. 17
2016 EUROPEAN AI & DATA ANALYTICS REPORT
BREAKDOWN OF THE INDUSTRY
API driven
7%
Artificial
Intelligence
44%
Autonomous
Vehicles
3%
Chatbot
1%
Data Analytics
45%
18. 83%
17%
B2B B2C
80%
20%
B2B B2C
18
2016 EUROPEAN AI & DATA ANALYTICS REPORT
B2B & B2C COMPARISON
NUMBER
OF DEALS
AMOUNT
RAISED
The European scaleup ecosystem is
predominantly B2B: 83% of all scale-ups are B2B,
that is 25% points more than the overall scale-up
ecosystem.
If the number of deals is taking into account,
Belgium has the highest percentage of B2B
scaleups in Europe. Only 1 Belgian scaleup
deploysB2C activities:robo-advisorSwanest.
19. 19
100% 100% 100% 100%
94% 92% 92%
89% 87% 87%
69% 69%
57% 57%
0% 0% 0% 0%
6% 8% 8%
11% 13% 13%
31% 31%
43%
47%
Netherlands Norway Portugal Denmark Belgium Ireland Switzerland Finland UK France Germany Spain Italy Sweden
B2B
B2C
2016 EUROPEAN AI & DATA ANALYTICS REPORT
B2B & B2C NUMBER OF DEALS PER COUNTRY
Top 13 countries
20. 20
65%
20%
10%
5%
Content driven
Marketplace
Crowdsourcing
Open Source
2016 EUROPEAN AI & DATA ANALYTICS REPORT
Thanks to Natural language processing, content
driven business models became the leading
business model for scaleups, counting for 65% of
thetotal.
Examples are AX-Semantics, Blogfoster, Content
Insights, Crowdynews, Echobox, Honeycomb,
Honeycomb,SignalMedia,StoryfulandStoryzy.
TYPE OF BUSINESS MODELS 2016
21. 21
2016 EUROPEAN AI & DATA ANALYTICS REPORT
The most active 2016 venture investor in Europe
for AI is French Kima Ventures from serial
entrepreneurXavierNiel.
Irish originated Intercom received funding from
Mark Zuckerberg and Jack Dorsey. German credit-
score scaleup Kreditech received funding from
PeterThielandtheWorldBank.
More than 600 funds and business angels made
investments in AI based scaleups last year.
No EuropeanAI scaleupwent IPO in 2016.
MOST ACTIVE INVESTORS
1. Kima Ventures(France)
2. IBB (Germany)
3. SalesforceVentures(USA)
4. Ventech(France)
5. SunstoneCapital(Sweden)
6. NotionCapital(UK)
7. IQ Capital(UK)
8. AmadeusCapitalPartners(UK)
9. BpiFrance(France)
22. 22
2016 EUROPEAN AI & DATA ANALYTICS REPORT
Corporate Venture Capital is involved in 25% of all
European deals and 29% of all capital raised. This
is significanthigherthanotherindustries.
The highest corporate investment was € 59M in
Cambridge based Darktrace by Japanese
SoftBank.
CORPORATE VENTURE CAPITAL
INVESTORS IN 2016
1. Salesforce
2. RobertBosch
3. Intel
4. Alstom
5. Publicis
6. Samsung
7. Axel Springer
8. SchneiderElectric
9. SolvayRhodia
10. SNCF
11. Mitsui
12. Orange
13. Nokia
14. GrupaPracuj
23. 23
2016 EUROPEAN AI & DATA ANALYTICS REPORT
TOP 5 BIGGEST DEALS*
€ 59M € 58M € 44M€ 44M € 40M
#01 #02 #03 #04 #05
*In amount raised
24. MERGERS & ACQUISITIONS BY 2016
FUNDED SCALEUPS
24
• API-firstKlarnafromSweden raised€ 32M and acquired Cookies App;
• UK based business intelligence company Maru raised € 58M and acquired eDigital Research, a UK-based customer insight company
and the NorthAmericanbusiness of Vision Critical Research and Consulting;
• French Synthesioraised€ 8M and acquired Presentation creatorBunkr in 2017;
• SwissLightbend (SoftwareDevelopment), a spin-offfromEPFL, raised€ 18M and acquired BoldRadiusin April 2016.
2016 EUROPEAN AI & DATA ANALYTICS REPORT
25. 25
25%
25%
22%
20%
14%
10%
8%
6%
5%
3%
Portugal
Switzerland
Belgium
Norway
Italy
UK
Ireland
France
Sweden
Germany
2016 EUROPEAN AI & DATA ANALYTICS REPORT
9% of European AI & Data Analytics scaleups are
spin-offs or spin-outs from universities and
knowledgeinstitutes.
It’s very much in line with the 8% of the scaleups
across all industries. It indicates that AI became
accessible to a largepoolof founders.
Even in the Autonomous Vehicles domain, only
one scaleup is a spin-off: BestMile from École
PolytechniqueFédéralede Lausanne.
SPIN-OFFS VS TOTAL TOTAL
BY COUNTRY IN 2016
27. 27
2016 EUROPEAN AI & DATA ANALYTICS REPORT
16% of the European AI scaleups graduated from
an acceleration program. That’s 2% more than
the14% across all industries.
Program alumni don’t necessary raise more
money, but they are 1.5 years younger on average
when they raise money. It might well be that they
can start to scale earlier or have better access to
investorsthanksto accelerationprograms.
ACCELERATORS, BY NUMBER OF
FUNDED SCALEUPS IN 2016
1. 500 Startups(USA)
2. imec.iStart(Belgium)
3. StartUpHealth(Finland)
4. Paris&Co(France)
5. Level39(UK)
6. ideaSpace(UK)
7. Seedcamp(UK)
8. Techstars(USA)
9. EntrepreneurFirst(UK)
10. Y Combinator(USA)
11. Le HubBpifrance(France)
28. 28
2016 EUROPEAN AI & DATA ANALYTICS REPORT
BREAKDOWN OF FOUNDERS
Female founders/CEOs
10%
Male founders/CEOs
90%
1 founder
36%
2 founders
40%
3 founders
10%
4 founders
7%
5 founders 7%
29. ADDITIONAL HIGHLIGHTS 2016
29
• The oldest AI company that got funded is Cambridge based Grapeshot. It’s using
advanced probability algorithms to provide data to better target advertising
campaignsandisfoundedin1992;
• 2 French companies got the Gartner Cool Vendor label: Alkemics and
ContentSquare; Synthesio, another French scaleup, received the Forrester Wave
2016recognition.
• Berlin based B2C FinTech company Clark closed a media-for-equity deal with Axel
Springer;
• Only 3 chatbot scaleups raised significant funding in 2016: Babylon Health, Recast.ai
andOrson.
• Aimotive, a Budapest based Autonomous Vehicle scaleup that received € 6M from
amongRobertBoschamongotherisaspin-offfromKishonti,aGeoTechcompany;
• 38 AI & Data Analytics scaleups have 100 employees or more employees (such as
Emarsys, Jobandtalent,Black Swan,Darktrace,PatSnap,Unbabel, Showpad, Feedzai,
Nutmeg,Inbenta,SwrveorOnfido);
• London based ET Index, an investor tools to manage carbon risk, got € 1.4M from
theEuropeanCommission;
• French Recast.ai is founded by four alumni from the famous coding school Ecole 42.
Itraised€ 1MfromthefounderofEcole42,XavierNiel.
2016 EUROPEAN AI & DATA ANALYTICS REPORT
30. AI SCALEUPS WITH REMARKABLE BUSINESS MODELS OR
TECHNOLOGY
30
• Elliptic: identifies illicit activity on the Bitcoin blockchain using AI (UK, FinTech, €
4.5M);
• Navya Tech: driverless vehicles that move safely without special infrastructure or
humanintervention(France,Automotive,€34M);
• source{d}: recruitment company analyzing open source code contributions to find
talent(Spain,HRTech,€ 5.4M);
• Audio Analytic: creating the internet of acoustically intelligent things (UK,
Security,€ 1M);
• Optolexia: UsingAItodetectdyslexiainchildren(Sweden,EdTech,€ 1M)
• Gluru: The smart to do list that helps you identify your tasks and suggests the
answers(UK,BusinessIntelligence,€2.3M);
• Resolver: a customer complaints platform to raise issues with brands and
companies(UK,ConsumerServices,€ 3.1M);
• AX-Semantics: semantic software that creates automatically text content based
on data only - in the quality of a human editor but at the speed of a machine
(Germany,MediaTech,€ 5M);
• Luminance: forensic insight into a company, freeing lawyers to focus on what
matters(UK,LegalTech,€ 2.7M);
• Daedalean: Autonomous flight control for the electric personal aircraft of the near
future(Switzerland,Aerospace,€ 900K).
2016 EUROPEAN AI & DATA ANALYTICS REPORT
33. 33
Scaleups, not startups, are generating added value,
create jobs, expand international and create
economic value for stakeholders and society. This
group is attracting the lion share of (venture) capital,
in some countries of up to 90% of all capital. In other
words, we use the Pareto distribution rule to create
an accurate view on the venturing landscape. Only
deals of at least $1M / € 750K are considered.
We encourage you to review the methodology to better understand the
numbers presented in this report. We use a data-driven approach to track
financingactivityforEuropeantechcompanies.
Companies includes web, app, mobile, digital products and services, software,
marketplace, connected hardware, data-driven and HardTech companies.
Companies that have their HQ or launched in Europe are considered.
LifeScience and BioTech (except software solutions targeting this industry),
non digital CleanTech, eCommerce (Hallofresh, Zalando etc) and research
institutesare excluded.
2016 EUROPEAN AI & DATA ANALYTICS REPORT METHODOLOGY
34. 34
Deals with a non-disclosed value or lacking value indication are not counted. If an amount is described as a
seven-figure number, the lowest possible value has been counted. Funding is registered based on
announcement date. All currencies (USD, GBP, CHF, SEK etc) are converted to Euro using aonda.com. The
number of employees is captured on the moment of fund raising and based on the press release, LinkedIn,
Xing,Viadeoor thecompany’swebsite.
The founding year and location is based on information in press releases, company website, Crunchbase,
LinkedIn or Xing. If deal information is being detected or corrected after closing the month, quarter or year,
it will be included in future reports. Funding of both private and public companies are considered. Debt
financing, IPOs, media for equity, crowdfunding, Initial Coin Offering, private placements, post IPO equity,
privateequity,grantsandconvertibleloansare included.
2016 EUROPEAN AI & DATA ANALYTICS REPORT METHODOLOGY
36. 36
OMARMOHOUT
Omar Mohout, a former technology entrepreneur, is a widely published technology author, C-level advisor
to high growth startups as well as Fortune 500 companies and Professor of Entrepreneurship at the
University of Antwerp, the Antwerp Management School and Solvay Brussels School of Economics and
Management.
He is author of 'Pricing Strategies for Startups', 'The Belgian Startup Landscape', ‘Crowdfunding in Belgium’
and the popular 'Startup Master Class series'. A contributing author to the ‘100 Days Digital Marketing
Plan’and‘TheFutureof Business’books.
He is Co-chair of the Circle Of Growth; Community host for Corporate Venturing Europe; Organizer of the
Growth Hacking Meetup and Co-founder of the #BeTech Community. He is an active member of the Board
of Directors at Startups.be, BeCentral and serves at the board of high growth technology companies
Aproplan.comandTeamleader.eu.
Mohout is a keynote speaker and panellist on technology, entrepreneurship and innovation topics at
leadingconferences.
2016 EUROPEAN AI & DATA ANALYTICS REPORT ABOUT THE AUTHOR
37. 37
Sirris, the collective centre of the Belgian technology industry, helps companies with the implementation
of technological innovations, enabling them to strengthen their competitive position over the long-term.
Sirris helps you make the best technological choice and rapidly turn your innovations into marketable
products and services. The Sirris experts visit companies on site, offer technological advice, launch
innovation paths, and provide guidance to reach the implementation phase. The aim is to find applicable
solutionsto therealchallengesfacedbytechnologyentrepreneursandstartups.
Sirris guides technology companies to a higher level of know-how and expertise in a wide range of
domains. The in-house experts provide a broad range of technological and go-to-market knowledge.
Where necessary, Sirris relies also on external knowledge partners, including specialized companies,
universities,knowledgecentres,andresearchinstitutions.
For moreinformationon howSirriscan helpyourcompanysuccess, pleasevisitwww.sirris.be.
2016 EUROPEAN AI & DATA ANALYTICS REPORT ABOUT SIRRIS
44. 44
No dataset is complete and this report provides an indication of reality only.
Comparing to reports of other providers on similar subjects is partly possible
whentakingintoaccountthedifferentmethodologies.
This report has been compiled for informational purpose only and should not
be regardedas a solicitationto investin anyentity.
This report relies on data and insights from a wide range of public and private
sources and we can’t be hold responsible for the completeness and accuracy
of the informationprovided.
This report may freely be distributed, republished and posted as long as the
content is not modified, decompiled or reference to the source is being
removed.
2016 EUROPEAN AI & DATA ANALYTICS REPORT DISCLAIMER