Pioneer AI: Checking the Nordic AI Pulse.
Welcome to 2024’s 11th edition of The Nordic AI Pulse, the weekly newsletter from Pioneer AI, a 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 You Need to Know About Raising €5.4 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 You Need to Know About Raising €5.4 Million

Myrspoven just secured €5.4 million in an equity funding round. We spoke to co-founder and CEO Anders Kallebo about the company's road to its latest funding round and how its AI solutions are deployed to manage more than 3,500,000 square meters of buildings across eight countries, saving an average of 20% of a building's energy use.

Pioneer: If you were to summarise your solutions, what would you say?

Anders: We provide AI-driven solutions that cut energy use and CO2 emissions for buildings. Our main service, myCoreAI, autonomously adjusts heating, cooling, and ventilation for efficiency. In addition, our add-on solution myLoadShift times energy use for heating or cooling to coincide with low energy prices. The building then acts like a supersized thermal storage unit.

Pioneer: What role does AI play in the solutions?

Anders: In principle, similar solutions could be developed without AI, but they would have to be tailored to individual buildings.

AI enables us to create a tool that models and creates a digital twin of any building and defines the optimum setup for the given owners and occupants.

Said differently, AI is pivotal for scale, flexibility, and adaptability.

On a broader scale, AI in our solutions helps enable intelligent energy use, integration of renewable energy and support for the green energy transition.

Pioneer: You recently closed an impressive funding round. First, congratulations. Is this your Series A round?

Anders: Thank you. It is hard to say what defines Seed, Series A, or otherwise. Still, I can say that it was an equity round led by 4impact Capital, Vantaa Energy, and our existing investor, AMAVI Capital.

Pioneer: Getting to where you are on your growth journey now is a stage many startup founders and entrepreneurs envision when setting out. Could you talk us through the funding process and what you learned?

Anders: Sure. One thing that entrepreneurs and founders should be aware of is that larger funding rounds are time-consuming and complex. For us, the process took more than a year from start to finish.

There will invariably be lawyers involved, and the due diligence process—its detail level—is likely way beyond what you experience in a Seed level round.

The VC industry has also changed. We have moved away from the early 2020s heydays of growth for the sake of growth. Now, investors are more focused on your business's ability to scale and show clear progress toward profitability—if it isn't already profitable.

Pioneer: Real estate has traditionally been a conservative industry. Given the scale of investments, that also makes sense. As an AI company, you are almost invariably offering solutions that industry decision-makers are unfamiliar with – particularly in more conservative industries. What was your approach to getting started – and what advice would you give to other AI companies looking to enter or broaden their market in similar industries?

Anders: As you say, the scale of investments for real estate is often large. However, that also means that the savings and benefits we can provide are very substantial.

In almost any industry, there will be early adopters. Finding them and gaining their trust can be time-consuming, but once they are on board, they will be your best advocates—and their results your best advertisements.

The next stage is to prove that you can scale to meet larger clients’ needs. In a transforming industry, this usually means changing the ways of working. You may need to address these concerns with tailored, unique set-ups, and you will sometimes have to take a case-by-case approach to solution tailoring and delivery. One thing to consider is partnerships with major clients that may look to white-label and onboard your solutions in their existing service portfolio.

We would love to hear your thoughts on Myrspoven and Anders’ insights. Let us know via email or contact us on the Pioneer AI LinkedIn page here. 

🎙Nordic News Roundup

• Why AI won’t lead to mass unemployment (but changes that are even more profound). [SE] (Warpnews)

• Are AI-generated images seeping into real estate adverts and apartment listings? [NO] (Tek)

• If you need braces, AI might fit them for you thanks to a new tool developed by the University of Copenhagen and the company 3Shape. [DK] (Ritzau)

• How AI can lead to more women in the technology industry. [NO] (Digi)

• Investment groups backed by ABB, Ericsson, and Saab puts 230 million Swedish Krona into 62 projects, including several within AI. [SE] (Avancerad Digitalisering)

• 90% of companies using AI to improve KPIs see a strong performance increase. [NO] (Kommunikasjon)

• 23-year-old Dane helps companies and shops in his hometown by developing a new AI tool. [DK] (Erhvervsplus) (Paywall)

• According to a new report, construction companies need to prepare for new technologies like drones and AI becoming a staple of building sites. [SE] (Fastighetstidningen)

• Danish materialists-chain Matas introduces AI solutions in a limited number of stores. [DK] (Watchmedier) (Paywall)

• Swedish AI organisation launches handbook for information-driven healthcare. (AI-SE)

🛠️ Cool Tools & Companies

• Mavenoid from Sweden develops an AI-driven product support and troubleshooting platform for hardware companies.

• 33A from Denmark provides training and consulting to help businesses construct AI projects.

• WordDive from Finland is a unique artificial intelligence-based application for learning languages.

• ayfie from Norway is an AI-powered platform that seamlessly connects to your data sources and generates insights.

  Do you know cool tools or companies we should feature in the newsletter? Let us 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 "BlueprintAI," an AI solution that changes how digital products are conceptualised and planned. An AI platform transforms digital product design ideas into detailed specifications, designs, and architectural plans. One of the primary business moats is the ability to enhance creativity and provide rapid conceptualisation backed by data-driven assessments. Future services include the option for users to work independently or collaborate with in—house expert designers.

🚀AI Funding News

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

• Signal from Denmark

• Orbis Medicines from Denmark

• eComID from Sweden

• Subsets from Denmark

• Bionamic from Sweden

• BeCause from Denmark

• Hakio from Denmark

• Portchain from Denmark

• Xensam from Sweden

• Go Autonomous from Denmark

Congratulations to all of the founders and teams!

Ten insights from the last 100 Nordic AI funding rounds

What does data from the last 100 Nordic AI funding rounds tell us? Here are ten core insights that uncover underlying trends and investment patterns shaping AI in the Nordics, split into numbers and general trends.

Numbers:

1: US$523,458,752 – the combined funding raised, based on deals with revealed figures (78 out of 100 deals)

2: US$100 million – the biggest funding round, raised by 1X Robotics.

3: US$6.7 million – the average funding round size, based on deals with revealed figures.

4: 1995 – when the oldest company on the list (Opera) was founded.

5: 30-10-2023 – when the youngest company on the list (Plovm) was founded.

Trends:

6: Big cities dominate – startups in Copenhagen, Stockholm, Oslo, and Helsinki dominate the list, suggesting a concentration of AI activities in the region’s major economic hubs.

7: Diverse industries –funding rounds occur across industries, showcasing AI’s broad potential. Biotech, healthcare, eCommerce, agritech, and energy are some of the leading spaces for funding rounds.

8: Different stages - funding happens across growth stages, indicating a steady development of new AI startups and existing companies over recent years.

9: Age doesn’t matter – there are no clear connection between company founding year and last funding size. Underlying reasons include investor confidence in the potential of new AI startups’ potential as well as more established companies.

10: Speed – the last 100 Nordic AI funding rounds have occurred in a little over a year, indicating a strong appetite for AI investments.

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

🎧 Listen To

• Bæredygtig [DK] examines how AI has helped companies in Denmark reduce waste and lower fuel costs.

• Prompt [DK] dives into what is happening with Facebook’s content moderation and what led to Sam Altman's firing last year.

• Teknologi og Mennesker [NO] - takes a closer look at the competition surrounding the production and use of AI chips.

📅 Training, Meetups & Conferences

Conferences

• 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]

• August 20-23: Robophilosophy Conference 2024: Social robots with AI: prospects, risks, and responsible methods. [Aarhus, 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

• AI Copenhagen

• Aarhus AI

• Stockholm AI

• AI Community of Sweden

• AI Engineering Sweden 

• Oslo AI

• Oslo Generative AI Meetup

• Oslo AI Product Lab

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,

Pioneer Venture AI,