While most of the attention is on the large public models, much of the value in AI will be delivered through private or hybrid AI implementations that protect the privacy and control of users’ and organizations’ data. ConfidentialMind allows companies to deploy these at scale. Founders' Edge is excited to support Markku Räsänen, Severi Tikkala, Esko Vähämäki and the whole team at ConfidentialMind to make their vision a reality. www.foundersedge.vc Henry Nilert Pekka Ylitalo Ali Omar #startups #angelinvesting #edge
🔒 🧠 I am happy to announce ConfidentialMind’s €1.5M pre-seed round led by Failup Ventures with support from Innovestor, Founders' Edge, and top data industry angel investors. The round consists of a €1M equity investment and a €0.5M loan from the Finnish government. This round helps us to get started on our mission to revolutionize enterprise generative AI beyond the cloud. Much of the talk with generative AI has been about the cloud, but there is a new race starting in the edge and in the data centers where much of the most valuable corporate and sovereign data resides. The systems that enable AI in data centers are traditionally difficult to build and maintain. We make development and deployment of generative AI models and applications in enterprise and government data centers as easy – or in some cases even easier – than in the cloud. Some say that Europe has lost its way and has no role in AI. We disagree. We think there is a critical mass of open source model innovation and AI talent in Europe and Finland. Our role is to contribute world-class software infrastructure and components that enterprises and governments can use to integrate generative AI on their own terms. Build once, deploy anywhere. I invite all of you to join us on this journey. During the coming months we will publish more of our work to contribute back to the community. It has been a wild ride that started in an office, where we had to use winter clothes inside because it was too cold. Now we are beginning to collaborate with some of the leading organizations in the world. Jesse Heikkilä, Oscar Andersin, Topias Soininen, Hannu Jungman, Henry Nilert, Pekka Ylitalo, Ali Omar, ilkka Hiidenheimo, Daniel Fried, Jonathan Scudder, Markus Oksanen, Jan Goetz, Juha Vartiainen, Sofokus Ventures, Eljas Linna, Stefano Chiavegati, Elena Gilotta LL.M. CIPP-e, Mark Faris, Michel Faris, Sylwia Barthel de Weydenthal (she/her), Henrikki Makynen, Joel-Oskar Raisanen Severi Tikkala, Esko Vähämäki, Henri Dahl, Raido Linde, Dan Zi, Lucas Björklund