What We Learned From Startups Pitching for a Million

Lessons for AI startups, founders and coming AI entrepreneurs

Author

Peter Juel Jensen
February 15, 2024

Pioneer AI: Checking the Nordic AI Pulse.
Welcome to 2024’s 6th 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:

  1. What We Learned From Startups Pitching for a Million

  2. Nordic News Roundup

  3. Cool Tools and Companies

  4. Please “Steal” This Startup Idea

  5. Nordic AI Funding News

  6. Podcast Insights

  7. Upcoming: Nordic AI Events You Shouldn't Miss

Pioneer Insights

What We Learned From Startups Pitching for a Million

When Pioneer AI hosted the Million AI Pitch competition, five AI startups took to the stage and pitched for our potential investment.

We want to thank everyone who turned up, especially the startup teams participating in the pitch competition.

We came away from the event with many learnings and takeaways, including for budding AI startups and entrepreneurs.

Here are five of the main ones:

1: Focus for success: A focused approach in a niche market significantly boosts chances of success. Demonstrating niche knowledge and a unique proposition creates a clearer growth story and business case for investors. Showcasing such expertise can include the founding team's background or strategic partnerships, such as with academic institutions.

2: Articulate your value: You need to be able to explain your value proposition effectively. Think about how to communicate the problem you're solving to potential investors in a relatable manner. One way to practice is by explaining your business, product, technology, and value to friends and family.

3: Start small: If you have a broad platform vision, it's essential to start with a tangible, standalone offering. I am happy if you sell me the overall vision, but you must be able to narrow it down to a manageable starting point and product or solution. I need to be able to see you succeeding with this solution while the rest of the platform is being built.

4: Know your moat: The uniqueness of your AI technology, business model, and market must be clear. As an investor, one of my first questions will be, ''What makes it difficult to impossible for me or someone else to create a similar solution?'' Your answer explains your startup's competitive edge or business moat. If it is clear why your AI solution and business case cannot be easily replicated, it massively increases funding chances.

5: Collaborate: AI is seeing a surge of interest. Startups and founders looking to attract funding must stand out and move flexibly and nimbly. Speed is critical for success, so finding the right partners is a massive step in the right direction. Those partners can assist you with developing your business case, adding valuable members to your team, identifying and contacting potential customers, and much more.

I would love to hear your thoughts on our points. Let me know on the Pioneer AI LinkedIn page here. 

🎙Nordic News Roundup

  • Should AI help determine the value of football (soccer, if you’re North American) players? [DK] (TV2)

  • More and more AI solutions will run directly on your phone and PC. Here’s why. [SE] (ComputerSweden)

  • Norway is home to more than 250 self-declared AI startups. But how many are actually using AI? [NO] (Shifter)

  • Are politicians stuck in the backseat when it comes to driving AI forward? [SE] (Sveriges Radio)

  • IBM Denmark CEO warns companies that slacking on AI data security ‘can have unimaginable consequences.’ [DK] (Computerworld) (Paywall)

  • Norway is lagging behind the rest of Europe on AI competencies. [NO] (Nettavisen)

  • Company CEOs are grossly underestimating AI’s influence on their own jobs and careers. [DK] (Ugebrev)

  • A new AI tool has been used to interpret handwritten 500-year-old Swedish texts. [SE] (Dagens Nyheter)

  • More than 25% of Norwegians are using AI at work - but many remain sceptical. [NO] (Code24)

  • Why AI is core to saving the Danish welfare society. [DK] (Berlingske) (Paywall)

🛠️ Cool Tools & Companies

  • Sensae from Denmark integrates AI and haptic biofeedback to help manage stress.

  • Savvie from Norway uses AI to streamline food businesses and reduce food waste.

  • Cognifirm from Denmark is a browser-based AI robot that helps employees and teams complete tasks.

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

💵Please “Steal” This Startup Idea

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

Introducing AIdvertiser, an AI-powered ad creative and banner generator. This solution offers fundamental upgrades to how businesses approach digital advertising. Advanced AI produces conversion-optimized content at speed, specifically targeted to meet the needs of startups, e-commerce stores, and SMEs. AI-driven insights and seamless integration with major ad platforms make AIdvertiser the perfect platform to redefine advertising efficiency.

🚀AI Funding News

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

Congratulations to all of the founders and teams!

Pioneer AI top 3 deal and funding highlights and insights: 

1: The billion-dollar robots are coming! For farming, that is. Ekobot and Saga Robotics both develop AI-powered robotic agriculture solutions. It is a market already worth billions of dollars - and is growing rapidly. The Nordic region’s relatively high salaries make it (pardon the poor wordplay) fertile ground for automation, and we expect more activity in the field soon.

2: Myrspoven raised €5.4 million. According to the company, its solutions for AI-driven energy optimisation result in 20% energy savings for buildings. Considering the legislative and economic incentives for energy optimisation, the future looks bright.

3: Kuva Space uses funding for international growth. As previously covered, Kuva Space recently raised funds. Those are set to be used for international expansion, particularly in the U.S. It is great to see Nordic AI startups think internationally, and we are rooting for Kuva!

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

🎧 Listen To

  • In Good Company - the CEO of Norway’s Wealth Fund’s podcast takes a look at how AI has moved into pest control.

  • AI Sweden [SE] - looks at how companies need to get to work with AI today, not tomorrow.

  • Teknologi og mennesker [NO] - takes a look at how technologies like AI can be used in the fight against climate change.

📅 Training, Meetups & Conferences

Conferences

  • 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]

  • 25 April: Applied AI Nordics: Leading Nordic AI conference. This year’s subject is how to move from opportunistic to strategic AI. [Copenhagen, Denmark]

  • April 27-28: SAIM 2024: Conference for sharing knowledge and results in theory, methodology and applications of Artificial Intelligence, Soft Computing, and Machine Learning. [Copenhagen, Denmark]

  • May 15-17: DevSum 20: International conference exploring the latest trends and technologies within development. [Stockholm, Sweden]

  • May 24-26: ICMLT 9: The Ninth International Conference on Machine Learning Technologies is a forum for exchanges on current challenges in the machine learning field. [Oslo, Norway]

  • June 10-11: SCAI Symposium 2024: The 14th Scandinavian conference on AI (SCAI) that brings together AI researchers and practitioners to present and discuss ongoing AI work and future trends. [Jonkøping, Sweden]

  • June 10-14: HHAI 2024: The third international Hybrid Human Artificial Intelligence conference exploring AI systems that cooperate synergistically, proactively, and purposefully with humans. [Malmø, Sweden]

  • July 18-19: ICAIAE 2024: Scientific conference for exchanging and sharing experiences and results of using AI for education. [Copenhagen, Denmark]

  • October 14-18: Process Mining Conference 2024: Industry and scientific conference on process mining. [Copenhagen, Denmark]

  • October 21-22: Nordic AI Meet: Symposium early-career AI researchers to network, collaborate, exchange ideas, and form a Nordic approach to building AI solutions for the societal good. [Helsinki, Finland]

  • October 21-23: D3A: The Danish Digitalization, Data Science and AI brings together a diverse audience to explore the latest trends and research in AI. [Nyborg, Denmark]

Meetups

Do you know an event, meetup or similar that you think should be on the list? Let me know!

Got an AI story or insight from the Nordics? Share it with me!

Reply to this email or connect on LinkedIn.

Until next time,

PeterHer