Aleph Alpha raises over $500m Series B funding to scale European AI development

Heidelberg-based Aleph Alpha, a player in the field of explainable and trustworthy AI, announced the successful signing of its Series B financing round. The company raised more than $500 million from a consortium of a total of seven new investors as well as existing investors from previous rounds.

The consortium is led by the Innovation Park Artificial Intelligence (Ipai), Bosch Ventures and the companies of Schwarz Group. Other new investors include Berlin-based Christ&Company Consulting, the global edge-to-cloud company Hewlett Packard Enterprise and German multinational enterprise application software company SAP, as well as Burda Principal Investments. Existing institutional investors participate in addition, completing the oversubscribed round.

Each party involved in this round plays a vital role in helping Aleph Alpha achieve its goal of providing sovereign AI solutions to enterprises and governments. The total funding exceeds half a billion US dollars, encompassing a substantial investment in applied research by Ipai, as well as commitments for joint business development. This includes preconsumption licenses with the global industry leaders of the consortium, aimed at scaling up the business model.

This commitment strengthens the foundation for Aleph Alpha to further advance its proprietary AI research, accelerate development and commercialization of Generative AI for the most complex and critical applications such as in data sensitive industries like healthcare, finance, law, government and security. Aleph Alpha will further expand key academic partnerships and contributions, and remains committed to reproducibility, excellence and sharing innovation through open source.

Jonas Andrulis, CEO and Founder of Aleph Alpha:  ''With this latest investment, we will continue to enhance our capabilities and enable our partners to be at the forefront of this technological development. To empower customers, Aleph Alpha will continue to expand its offerings while maintaining independence and flexibility for customers in infrastructure, cloud compatibility, on-premise support and hybrid setups. The ongoing developments will extend interfaces and customization options tailored to business-critical requirements. For customers with a significant responsibility and in strategic environments where sovereignty is at risk, we will remain the best option.''

The significant enhancement of the capabilities of Large Language Models by a European company gives government agencies as well as companies the opportunity to build and apply AI in a sovereign environment, as Aleph Alpha combines data protection and security with unique explainability and customization options.

Rolf Schumann, Co-CEO, Schwarz Digits: ''Aleph Alpha will shape the future of Generative AI and set new standards for this key technology. As such, Aleph Alpha is a perfect fit with our sovereign Cloud and Cyber Security offerings STACKIT and XM Cyber. This technology will enable us to further optimize our digital services – both for the companies of Schwarz Group and our external customers.''

www.aleph-alpha.com