b2venture

🚨🚨 Congratulations to our portfolio company Blacklane, which announced today it has closed its largest funding round ever, securing USD 65 million from TASARU Mobility Investments as a strategic investor, alongside existing investors such as Mercedes-Benz Mobility AG, Gargash Group, ALFAHIM, Alstin Capital and RI Digital Ventures. The company is gearing up for an exciting phase of growth, especially in Saudi Arabia and across the Middle East, as well as diversifying its services, ranging from airport transfers to city-to-city connections, booking-by-the-hour and in-city mobility solutions. Congratulations to Dr. Jens Wohltorf and the entire Blacklane crew! Read more on the news at Bloomberg here 👉 https://lnkd.in/etKcEEqP cc Jochen Gutbrod

🔮 🔭 Are you thinking about doing something new? 🍂 🍁 Autumn is the time of year that many companies begin setting goals and making plans for the upcoming year, including expanding their teams or creating new roles. There are more than a 1000 job opportunities across +80 companies in the b2venture portfolio. Check out our jobs board - you can search for new roles according to job function, industry, company size, and location - here 👇 👇 https://lnkd.in/eGGrQKrc Companies such as Atlas Metrics, 1KOMMA5°, Blacklane, DeepL, Nelly Solutions, neptune.ai, Predium, Raisin, and SumUp are all hiring!

📣 📣 A big shoutout to our portfolio company LatticeFlow AI, which has been making waves with a lot of positive news recently. 1️⃣ The team helped launched 𝐂𝐎𝐌𝐏𝐋-𝐀𝐈 (https://hubs.la/Q02TB9Pn0), the world's first technical framework able to evaluate Generative AI models on the EU AI Act. Together with collaborators at ETH Zürich and INSAIT - Institute for Computer Science, Artificial Intelligence and Technology, the platform is open-sourced and freely available to everyone. 2️⃣ KPMG Switzerland and LatticeFlow AI signed a strategic partnership to accelerate AI risk assessments and help enterprises mitigate risks while ensuring regulatory compliance. 3️⃣ The LatticeFlow team also secured roughly USD 3 million in funding from the Innosuisse Swiss Innovation Agency as part of the Swiss Accelerator initiative to build first platform linking AI governance and technical evaluations. The project tackles a key challenge in the rapidly growing AI Trust, Risk, and Security Management market, which is projected to surpass USD 8 billion by 2033. Congratulations to Petar Tsankov, Martin Vechev, Andreas Krause, Pavol Bielik and the entire LatticeFlow team! b2venture Partner Andreas Goeldi: “What I have always found so compelling about LatticeFlow and the team's technology is their holistic approach to AI, which is deeply rooted in cutting-edge research as well as a fundamental understanding of real-world needs. I am thrilled with the progress and impact they are having in the market." Links to the news in the comments!

📚🎒 The German Startup-Verband and Founders Foundation gGmbH just published the first national #EdTechStartupMonitor for Germany, here are the major takeaways: 💡 Nine out of ten German startup founders are critical of the slow pace of digitization in the education sector. 💡 Yet, with 493 EdTech startups, it is clear that Germany has strong innovative potential to transform education. 💡 Particularly noteworthy: 36% of founders in the EdTech sector are women – that's twice as high as the national average in the startup ecosystem. 💡 Major hurdles remain: only 4% of EdTech startups have received venture capital thus far, representing an impediment for growth. b2venture’s Anna Bosch gave her own perspective on the EdTech market: “The developments in the EdTech market are dynamic  – there are EdTech startups with a global vision and strategy for which venture capital is a suitable form of financing given the opportunity to scale.[...] On the other hand, the market is also very fragmented in some areas and many use-cases need to take local factors into account, which makes it difficult for some EdTech startups to scale. There are many exciting approaches in the education market, but not all market opportunities for EdTechs are suitable for a venture capital investor.” 🙏 Thanks to all the fellow investors, experts, and founders who contributed Benedict Kurz, Verena Pausder, simpleclub, Dr. Gesa Miczaika, Jessica Lieber, Ann-Christin Kortenbrede, Amanda Maiwald, Dominik Gross, Jannis Gilde, Vanusch Walk, Alexander Hirschfeld, Sven Grabbe, Anna-Luisa Korte, Nik Riesmeier and many more. 🔎 🔎 Read the entire report here https://lnkd.in/eyayGezn 🥽 🥽 And don’t forget to check out Anna’s own recent deep dive into the opportunities for EdTech startups and Generative AI in the comments section below.

We are gearing up to attend Stage Two, the largest pan-European competition for the best startups spinning out of leading universities, taking place on October 30-31 in Berlin. 🎉 🎓 We are happy to once again sponsor an investment prize this year and cannot wait to wit in store this year, alongside fantastic investors and partners such as Bertelsmann SE & Co. KGaA, Orrick Germany, EXIST - Existenzgründungen aus der Wissenschaft, McKinsey & Company, hubraum, Siemens, Lakestar, World Fund, Seaya, Earlybird Venture Capital, Peak XV Partners, Atlantic Labs, Capnamic Visionaries Club! 💪 🤝

At b2venture we are passionate about partnering with universities and research organizations to connect with the coming generation of founders and investors.  The curiosity, energy, and ambition we find there is contagious and helps us to recharge our batteries during this busy season. ⚡🔋 b2venture’s Sabrina Stöckl had the honor of speaking at the TUM Entrepreneurial Masterclass this week, sharing insights on our philosophy of investing and the fundamentals of venture capital.  Anna Bosch and Marisa Yasmin Krummrich were in St. Gallen and met with the HSG Alumni | Universität St.Gallen Women’s Club, providing a behind-the-scenes look into the world of venture capital and how and why we decide to invest in startups, in a great conversation with Melanie Gabriel and Sabina Furler. 💡💡Key Takeaways: ✔️ It’s crucial to have an alignment of values between founders and investors ✔️ We are early-stage investors focused on the long-term success of the companies we back. Our strategy is focused on supporting founders for the long-haul from getting the right follow-on investors to helping startups find the right expertise at the right time with the support of our unique angel community of experts. ✔️ We support the European ecosystem more broadly through initiatives like our Startup Resources, which is open to anyone looking to start a company, not just our portfolio companies (https://lnkd.in/eJn_XwNz) Thanks to TUM Entrepreneurial Masterclass and the HSG Alumni | Universität St.Gallen Women's Club for the invitation and great discussions! 🙏 🙏

We are happy to share the news that our portfolio company Ikerian (formerly Retinai), a leading developer of software solutions for medical image and data management, and AI in healthcare, has completed a first-close of a USD 8M Series B funding led by Sanoptis and existing co-investors including THINC Ventures, Zürcher Kantonalbank, and Verve Ventures. The partnership with Sanoptis will help Ikerian bring cutting-edge AI solutions to over hundreds of clinics across Europe, enhancing patient care and data workflows in the clinic. 💪 💪 Congrats to Carlos Ciller, Stefanos Apostolopoulos, Sandro De Zanet and team on this important milestone! 🔎 🔎 Read more about the news here ➡️ ➡️ https://lnkd.in/eRDKUCX9 cc Christian Schütz Matterwave Ventures

🤖 🇪🇺 The 𝐄𝐔 𝐀𝐈 𝐀𝐜𝐭 came into force in August 2024 as the first comprehensive AI regulation, yet the Act only outlines high-level regulatory requirements and doesn’t provide any detailed technical guidelines for companies to follow. 💥💥 That’s why we are excited to see our portfolio company LatticeFlow AI leading the way with the launch of 𝐂𝐎𝐌𝐏𝐋-𝐀𝐈 (https://hubs.la/Q02TB9Pn0), the first technical framework able to evaluate Generative AI models on the EU AI Act. Together with collaborators at ETH Zürich and INSAIT - Institute for Computer Science, Artificial Intelligence and Technology, the platform is open-sourced and freely available to everyone. 🤝 👍 👁️ 👁️ Check out the first compliance-centered evaluations of large public models available from OpenAI, Meta, Google, Anthropic, and Alibaba, revealing key gaps in addressing some requirements, such as transparency and cybersecurity, while highlighting strong performance in handling harmful content and toxicity. 💪🇪🇺 The platform also has the support of the European Commission, with Thomas REGNIER, Spokesperson for the  European Commission commenting:  "The European Commission welcomes this study and AI model evaluation platform as a first step in translating the EU AI Act into technical requirements, assisting AI model providers in implementing the AI Act." "With COMPL-AI, any organization — whether working with public, custom, or private models — can now evaluate their AI models against the EU AI Act's technical interpretation," said Dr. Petar Tsankov CEO and Co-Founder at LatticeFlow AI. This is an important milestone for Europe and the future of AI! 🔎 🔎 Read the entire story at Reuters here ➡️ https://lnkd.in/dbSnmE7S And see the comments section for a link to the full release!

Zurich may be best known for finance and fintech, but the city is home to many innovative startups across AI, robotics, and batteries. We were very pleased to see two of our portfolio companies on WIRED's "Hottest Startups in Zurich in 2024" feature - Decentriq and LatticeFlow AI 🔥 Decentriq provides data clean rooms - neutral, secure environments for organizations to share insights on markets and customers without sharing first-party data. 🔥 LatticeFlow AI has built a platform that automatically stress-tests AI models, analyzing how predictions are made, and finding patterns that lead to systematic errors, such as blindspots and hallucinations. Congratulations to Maximilian and Stefan from Decentriq and Petar, Pavol, Martin, and Andreas from LatticeFlow! Many of these companies were spun out from Switzerland's top universities and research institutions, such as the ETH Zürich, a testament to how important it is to leverage innovations in the lab and turn them into commercial businesses, something we at b2venture are very passionate about fostering. Read the entire article here 👉 👉 https://lnkd.in/gTWnUHix

b2venture's Anna Bosch will be speaking at this year’s #Startupland Conference in Cologne, to discuss the current state of the German startup scene and what trends, challenges, and opportunities are unfolding at this critical juncture. She will be part of an an esteemed panel, including Simon Schneider from neoteq ventures, David Rosskamp of Magnetic Capital, and Michael Treskow from Eight Roads. 🗓️ November 6, 2024 ⏰ 10:00 - 10:25 AM 📍 Founders Stage Some of the fantastic founders from our portfolio such as Irene from Edurino | We are hiring! and Philipp from 1KOMMA5° will be speaking at the conference as well. 🎟️ 🎟️ Haven't got tickets yet? Get them here --> https://lnkd.in/dzSft2fY