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AI Interview: Go Deep to Succeed with Your AI Start-up

AI Interview: Go Deep to Succeed with Your AI Start-up

Advice and insights from innovation and start-up advisers

Peter Juel Jensen
November 28, 2023

Pioneer AI: Checking the Nordic AI Pulse.
Welcome to the 12th edition of The Nordic AI Pulse, the weekly newsletter from Pioneer AI, our Nordic-focused AI investment fund. Dive in for a roundup of AI news, deals, and insights covering the Nordic region.

📚 In This Issue:

The AI Interview: Go Deep to Succeed with Your AI Start-up
Nordic News Roundup
Cool Tools and Companies
Please “Steal” This Start-up Idea
Nordic AI Funding News
Podcast Insights
Upcoming: Nordic AI Events You Shouldn't Miss

Pioneer Insights

The AI Interview Series:

Go Deep to Succeed with Your AI Start-up

Rasmus Stig Beck Jensen (L) and Mark Riis (R)

AI innovation is happening at rocket speed – and on several levels. These are a couple of the points raised by Mark Riis, Head of Innovation, DTU Compute, and Rasmus Stig Beck Jensen, Business Unit Manager, DTU Compute.

Their jobs at one of the Nordic region's premier educational and innovation centres involve advising start-ups and founders and turning the institute’s ground-breaking research into new business ventures. I spoke to them about AI start-ups and how to succeed as an entrepreneur.

DTU Compute has a strong record, with about 40 start-ups emerging from its concerted efforts over the last decade. That means three to four new companies emerge from your work in the institute each year. What drives that success?

Mark Riis: We make a concerted effort to drive innovation and exposure to what it means to run a company as part of the institute's foundations. Company founders from DTU Compute include professors and students, meaning there’s a precedent and success stories that can inspire you.

We also run specialised events, For example, entrepreneur sessions such as the young researcher boot camp. Then there is the Digital Tech Summit, the most prominent deep tech summit in the Nordics, which draws in 5000 to 6000 people. It allows start-ups, investors, and budding founders to meet and exchange insights.

It seems you strongly focus on exposing students and staff to other parts of the technology ecosystem?

Mark Riis: Yes, that would be an accurate way of putting it. Getting exposure to investors and the business aspects of the process of beginning and growing a business helps breed success. That does not only apply to our institute's students. I recommend it to anyone looking to begin their own company.

This is one of the reasons why we are very interested in collaborations with the broader start-up environment, including with investors like Pioneer AI.

We often talk about the "magic sauce" for a founder to succeed. In your experience, are there specific qualities that are vital to founders?

Rasmus Stig Beck Jensen: It’s hard to say that there are specific qualities that exist within every single founder. Everyone's different and has different strengths and weaknesses. That is one of the reasons we are very focused on team building, preparing founders to work with teams and having a strong understanding of what each individual brings to the table. For example, when it comes to business specialists or communications or marketing experts.

If there was one personal trait I should point to as a common denominator for success, it would be a firm belief in your idea and that you have a unique approach.

Looking at the market for AI start-ups and new solutions, there is a lot of interest and activity. From your perspective, what does the market look like, and where do you see the most significant opportunities for new AI companies?

Rasmus Stig Beck Jensen: One of the core strengths we see in the connection between universities and new companies is the depth of the solutions our staff and students can deliver and how that leads to industry trust and a stamp of approval.

Said differently, having a recognised field expert or scientist onboard in a company can help you in different ways. For one, it can increase trust between your start-up and potential clients. This is especially important in industry spaces that are highly regulated and have substantial compliance requirements, such as healthcare or financial services. However, I would argue that it applies across all areas of the spectrum. Take a furniture manufacturer as an example. They are in many ways as reliant on data accuracy and working with start-ups that understand their business and industry as, say, a bank is.

You could argue that AI development is happening on two levels. At the top level, we have solutions that function like an API on top of one of the big LLM models, such as ChatGPT. There is a lot of innovation and interest here, but creating a business moat or unique selling point is challenging.

For any start-up, you need to ask yourself if you have unique selling points that are difficult for others to replicate. This question is much easier to answer if you, like many of our staff and students, have a more in-depth approach with a deep understanding of the AI field and develop vertically deep solutions for specific industries.

🎙Nordic News Roundup

Danish researchers use AI to find a formula for predicting monster waves. (Ritzau)
Are fewer Swedes using AI today than two years ago? [NO] (TU)
The AI start-up Bineric wants to revolutionise Norway with its “NorskGPT” technology. [NO] (Shifter)
One in eight Danish children chats with the “My GPT” AI. [DK] (DR)
AI is providing patients with near-instant results on their tests at a Norwegian hospital. [NO] (Forskning)
Swedish employers predict that AI will lead to more instead of fewer jobs. [SE] (Via TT)
Woodpeckers are destroying wooden utility poles in Norway. Now, AI will try to stop them. [NO] (Europower) (Paywall)

🛠️ Cool Tools & Companies

Tryp from Denmark offer multi-destination planning and booking by using AI.
Qlent from Sweden offers an AI-powered digital platform that provides business data information.
Mailwriter from Sweden helps you write emails and schedule meetings via AI.
Aiven from Finland uses AI to automate database performance optimization.

Do you know cool tools or companies I should feature in the newsletter? Let me know!

💵Please “Steal” This Start-up Idea

We would love to see someone build the following (and if you do, we might invest in you).

Introducing "Nordic SocialEngageAI." This AI-driven tool can help you identify and engage with relevant users and hashtags across social media platforms and in all Nordic languages. It can automate social media interactions. The AI creates real-time alerts about followed hashtags and accounts. Its business moats include integrated communication strategies and audience growth and engagement metrics. SocialEngageAI simplifies managing multiple accounts and offers real-time analytics, helping users grow their audience and business efficiently.

🚀AI Funding News

Select Nordic AI companies that have raised funds in recent months:

Skald AI from Sweden
Teton from Denmark
RiACT from Denmark
Capalo AI from Finland
Saidot from Finland
QA.Tech from Sweden
Corti from Denmark
Skyqraft from Sweden
Strise from Norway
Tailwind Biotech from Denmark

Congratulations to all of the founders and teams!

Are there other Nordic companies that should be on this list? Let me know!

🎧 Listen To

Digitaliseringspådden [SE]- A Swedish look at using AI in human resources functions.
AI Revolutionen [DK] - A Danish podcast episode that looks at AI and the future of work.
Teknologi og mennesker [NO] - Norwegian podcast episode on what “everyday-AI” will look like - and how it will affect our work and education.

📅 Training, Meetups & Conferences

Conferences

November 30 - December 1: Nordic AI Summit: Nordic Conference on AI. [Oslo, Norway]
4-7 December: Human-Agent Interaction 2023: The premier interdisciplinary venue for discussing and disseminating state-of-the-art research and results. [Gothenburg, Sweden]
7 December: AI Enhanced Mobility: Presentations on results of feasibility studies. [Gothenburg, Sweden/Online]
February 1-2 (2024): Danish Digitalization, Data Science and AI: AI research and knowledge-sharing conference. [Nyborg, Denmark]
14 March (2024): Applied AI Nordics: Make AI practical and understandable and inspire how to get value from AI in business. [Copenhagen, Denmark]
14 March (2024): AI-Con 2024: AI in the context of content and marketing. [Oslo, Norway]
17-18 April (2024): AI+: Get the latest updates from the world of artificial intelligence. [Halden, Norway]
24-25 April (2024): Data Innovation Summit: One of the most influential Nordic events on data, analytics and AI. [Stockholm, Sweden]