23 million euros for Aleph Alpha

The Heidelberg-based start-up is working on artificial intelligence with European data security standards. A new advisory board chairman is also coming on board.

Aleph Alpha only raised five million euros at the beginning of the year, and now the Heidelberg-based AI start-up is receiving a further 23 million euros in a current financing round. Investors Klaus Hommels and his fund Lakestar, the early-stage investor Earlybird and the tech financier UVC from Munich are also involved. Cavalry Ventures, Lea Partners and 468 Capital are also participating. Hommels joins Aleph Alpha's advisory board.

Founded in 2019 by former Apple executive Jonas Andrulis and Samuel Weinbach, the startup is dedicated to artificial intelligence aligned with European standards. A current project is the cloud solution Gaia X, which is supposed to work similar to Amazon Web Services or Azure and provides language models and applications for companies. For this, Aleph Alpha is working with partners such as the Jülich Research Center, the Technical University of Dresden and the Fraunhofer Institute.

Founder Andrulis has big plans for his start-up: "We are the only European company ready to provide the basic technology for transformative artificial intelligence," he says. This is about "European sovereignty" vis-à-vis dominant countries in terms of AI, such as China and the USA.