AI Hustle: News on Open AI, ChatGPT, Midjourney, NVIDIA, Anthropic, Open Source LLMs: Helsing Shatters EU Record with $223M Defense AI Funding

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Helsing, which is the European startup specializing in defense AI technology, has secured another

209 million pounds, or I guess euros, sorry, which is about $223 million US, and they're

doing this in a Series B investment round.

So General Catalyst spearheaded the funding.

This is of course a major VC company, and Swedish industrial and defense conglomerate

Saab entered the round as a strategic investor.

So this follows the startup's previous 102 million euro round, which was backed heavily

by Daniel Eek, who is founder of Spotify.

If you don't know, I recommend following him on X, you know, formerly Twitter.

He's got some good takes on stuff, so I see his stuff pop up from time to time.

In any case, the financial injection I think really could catapult Helsing to a top tier

of both European AI and defense technology companies.

So for context, France's minstrel AI recently closed $113 million seed round at a valuation

of 260 million.

So Helsing's latest valuation metrics are certainly in another league.

The pre-money valuation was around 1.5 billion euros, with the latest funding propelling

that number to over 1.7 billion.

So in 2021, Daniel Eek really kind of pledged, I think, a billion dollars, or a billion euros,

sorry, going back and forth between the euro and US dollar conversions is tripping me up

a little bit.

But yeah, anyways, he pledged a billion euros, or $1.2 billion, of his personal wealth to

invest in groundbreaking technological endeavors, which he termed were, quote, moonshot projects.

This is actually kind of cool, right?

We see a lot of big tech people playing it safe with their money.

I mean, you look at like Jeff Bezos and, you know, no hate to Mr. Bezos, but I see he spends

a lot of time on his mega yachts, which like, if I was him, come on, like there's got to

be better things you could invest in or feel like you could contribute to society than your

mega yachts.

But I guess like maybe people call me a hater because it's his money, he could spend it

however he wants, which I totally subscribe to that, you know, but like, I don't know.

This seems cool to me that this, that, you know, Daniel's going to spend a billion dollars

on moonshot projects, which obviously are interesting and exciting.

They're groundbreaking technological endeavors.

Meanwhile, you got Mr. Bezos, who's like, you know, spending a billion dollars on his

super yachts and, you know, taking apart historical bridges in order to get them under.

I don't think that ended up happening, but there's a whole debacle a while ago, if you

saw it.

In any case, there's also like a bunch of, sorry, I know I'm going on a tangent, but

there's like a bunch of VCs I listen to, if you listen to the All In podcast, you got

Jason Callicanus, who's, you know, he's on that and he always talks about how he thinks

Jeff Bezos is going to run for president.

If Jeff Bezos is listening and you would like to run for president, come on, do something

cool, like work on some of these moonshot projects or feel like you contribute more than

living on your mega yacht.

I know a lot of people hate Elon Musk for a lot of reasons.

Personally, I think he's doing some incredible stuff.

I know he gets a lot of hate, but one thing you definitely have to credit him for is he

sold all of his mansions, he sold all of his stuff, and he literally just lives in whatever,

whatever company he's working at, doing whatever he believes in.

So he's obviously done some great things for the environment and for everything else with

Tesla and everything else that he's working on.

So, you know, you got to give him some credit in the sense that he's not currently living

on a mega yacht, which maybe it's just a phase for Mr. Bezos.

So I guess I'll stop throwing him some shade and maybe he'll look at something more exciting

and interesting for the rest of us.

If not, then I guess he'll just sail off into the sunset.

In any case, back to the topic at hand, I think operating through his investment firm,

which is Prima Materia, ECH, so Daniel, right?

He initially infused Helsing with 100 million euros, and the startup's AI platform aims

to enhance defense and national security measures, specifically tailored for liberal democracies

by making them more efficient through real-time data.

So, you know, you can definitely see there's a very real-world use case in this today when

we're seeing Russia invading Ukraine and the whole everything going down there.

I think Europe, in general, is a lot more aware of, and I think Daniel comes from Sweden

if I'm not mistaken, and so I think Europe right now is a lot more aware and kind of

cognizant of defense and the importance of investing in defense tech.

It's kind of interesting.

I know there's like this whole thing here in the U.S. where it's like this controversial

thing.

A lot of tech companies are like, we're not working with defense companies.

It's like, yeah, okay, well, let's just theoretically say China invaded America.

I'm pretty sure all of these major tech companies would just decide, okay, I guess we can work

on tech stuff, otherwise it'd seem quite, I don't know, traitorous or something.

I don't know.

So, I know there's a whole thing there, but whatever, I think it's definitely necessary

if you live in a good democratic country and you believe in democratic ideals, you'd probably

want the best and brightest in your country to support technological endeavors to protect

your country.

In any case, again, I digress.

So anyways, I think the startup's AI platform kind of aims to enhance a bunch of different

defense measures.

Helsing has also been making inroads by making a bunch of relations with various European

governments.

So this June, the German government selected the company in conjunction with SAB to implement

AI-enabled electronic warfare capabilities for the Eurofighter jet.

So more recently, Helsing and its consortium partner secured the contract to serve as the

AI backbone for the future combat air system.

That's the FCAS program.

So the startup has been significantly active in Ukraine since 2022, though I think a lot

of details of their involvement remain undisclosed, it's probably all confidential right now.

But Torsen Riel, who's the co-founder of Helsing, stated, quote, this funding round is a vote

of confidence and Europe general catalysts commitment to global and European resilience

is a perfect fit for our mission to help protect our democracies.

So Grenberg Schurf, who is another co-founder of Helsing, kind of elaborated on the company's

philosophy and said, quote, we founded Helsing because we believe the AI will be essential

so that democracies can continue to defend their values.

Our recent traction shows that this belief is shared by governments and industry.

So I think Helsing's preceding series A was also noteworthy and was led by Prima Materia,

which is, of course, Daniel Elk's company.

So commenting on the series B round, Daniel Ek, who serves as co-chairman of Helsing mentioned,

quote, this investment from general catalyst and investment and strategic partnerships

with Saab Defense reaffirms Helsing as the primary AI platform partner out of Europe.

So I think the new financing really marks another milestone for Helsing and is positioning

it not only as a startup to watch, but also as a growing force in the realm of AI and

defense technology.

We've seen a couple big companies come out of the US, so it's very interesting to see

some coming out of other areas as well.

Definitely company will be following in the future.

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Machine-generated transcript that may contain inaccuracies.