Aleph Alpha, a Heidelberg-based leader in the field of explainable and trustworthy AI – recently announced the successful signing of its Series B financing round. The company raised $500 million from a consortium of a total of seven new investors as well as existing investors from previous rounds.
This consortium is led by the Innovation Park Artificial Intelligence (Ipai), Bosch Ventures, and the companies of Schwarz Group. And the other new investors include Berlin-based Christ&Company Consulting, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, SAP, and Burda Principal Investments. In addition, existing institutional investors participated – completing the oversubscribed round.
The total funding exceeds half a billion US dollars – encompassing a substantial investment in applied research by Ipai and commitments for joint business development. And this includes pre-consumption licenses with the global industry leaders of the consortium, aimed at scaling up the business model.
This commitment is strengthening the foundation for Aleph Alpha to advance its proprietary AI research and further accelerate the development and commercialization of Generative AI for the most complex and critical applications, such as in data-sensitive industries such as healthcare, finance, law, government, and security. And Aleph Alpha will further expand key academic partnerships and contributions and remains committed to reproducibility, excellence, and sharing innovation through open source.
KEY QUOTES:
“With this latest investment, we will continue to enhance our capabilities and enable our partners to be at the forefront of this technological development. To empower customers, Aleph Alpha will continue to expand its offerings while maintaining independence and flexibility for customers in infrastructure, cloud compatibility, on-premise support and hybrid setups. The ongoing developments will extend interfaces and customization options tailored to business-critical requirements. For customers with a significant responsibility and in strategic environments where sovereignty is at risk, we will remain the best option.”
“We are amazed by the incredible potential of technology and opportunities in a new era of human-machine collaboration. Our commercial traction is motivating us to grow to meet our clients’ demands and remain one of the best teams in Generative AI. Our partners are industry leaders that offer huge potential for innovation and scale, and we are committed to building these partnerships towards a leading position in their respective industries. Our unique explainability and trust technology plays a crucial role in this.”
— Jonas Andrulis, CEO and founder of Aleph Alpha
“Aleph Alpha will shape the future of Generative AI and set new standards for this key technology. As such, Aleph Alpha is a perfect fit with our sovereign Cloud and Cyber Security offerings STACKIT and XM Cyber. This technology will enable us to further optimize our digital services – both for the companies of Schwarz Group and our external customers.”
— Rolf Schumann, Co-CEO of Schwarz Digits
“Actively developing Generative AI will be crucial for Europe’s technological sovereignty. That’s why we at Bosch are opening fields of application and business models and playing a key role in shaping this cutting-edge technology together with other companies such as Aleph Alpha.”
— Dr. Tanja Rückert, Member of the Board of Management and Chief Digital Officer of Robert Bosch GmbH