The 2023 Atomico's State of European Tech Report reveals Netherlands to be a standout success, cementing its position as a star player in the startup ecosystem. In terms of capital invested in its private tech companies, for instance, it's risen back into the top five countries with a projected 2.1 billion. And while the UK has seen the share of its European capital invested drop by almost three per cent within the last three years, the Netherlands comes out top, capturing the biggest gains in Europe at almost 2 per cent. The hub of the Netherlands' startup ecosystem is Amsterdam, which hosts around 4,000 startups, including unicorns like Mollie, Mambu and Backbase. Known for its international focus, collaborative ecosystem, and diverse and skilled workforce, it's also dedicated to tackling urgent societal issues.

Round led by Stellaris Venture Partners, with participation from Pi Ventures and angel investors. LimeChat, a chatbot startup for D2C brands, has raised $4.2 million in Seed funding led by Stellaris Venture Partners, with participation from Pi Ventures, Titan Capital and marquee angel investors. LimeChat's assistant lets the brand instantly respond to customer queries throughout the buying journey, from product discovery to checkout to returns. LimeChat's WhatsApp Retention Campaigns help brands engage customers on WhatsApp at critical points in their buying journey, from abandoned checkout to feedback to win-back of existing users. This allows brands to increase campaign conversions by 3x, reduce support workloads by 70%, and improve customer satisfaction.

So you have a new cutting-edge AI product/service idea. Unfortunately, this is easier said than done! How can a project cover the numerous expenses of AI product development, and remain financially stable? This is exactly where seed funding comes in. What is seed funding?... Seed funding comes before the product/service is ready for commercialization.

Plain Complex is a Finnish startup company founded in 2021, although the initial product development started already three years ago. As an anesthesiologist Sasu Liuhanen repeatedly witnessed the challenges of planning nurses’ shifts in his daily work; the process was slow, required a lot of manual work and the quality of the rosters left all too often a lot to desire.To develop a solution to the problem, Sasu Liuhanen, an experienced anesthesiologist and software developer, Tuomo Peltola, a seasoned professional in health-tech sales and marketing, and Stefano Campadello, a professional in business development and information technology founded a company and are now commercializing its artificial intelligence-based roster planning software. 150k from Finnish angel investors  The first angel investment round of the company was completed with four renowned angel investors. Ali Omar (FiBAN business angel of the year 2019), Reima Linnanvirta (chair of the board, FiBAN), Henry Nilert (founder of IoBox, FiBAN angel investor), and Pekka Ylitalo (Dimerent) made a 150 000 € seed investment into the company.  - Roster planning affects a great number of nurses and their families. Hence, the quality of the rosters has an immense effect on employees’ work-life balance and their well-being. Artificial intelligence is a true game-changer and enables finding optimal shifts for each employee, says Ali Omar.  - Well-being employees are the focus of Plain Complex, but at the same time, an organization can achieve significant cost savings brought by the uniform quality and fairness of the rosters. Using artificial intelligence is a true win-win, says FiBAN’s chair of the board, Reima Linnanvirta.  Artificial intelligence improves well-being at work and brings costs savings to healthcare  An ongoing pilot in a large Finnish hospital has already proven that artificial intelligence can plan rosters where employees can combine shift work and personal life in a way that has not been possible before. Transforming the previously long and tedious planning process from days or even weeks into a few minutes opens up new and unseen opportunities. - A good roster needs to comply with all applicable laws, collective agreements, organizational requirements, criteria for ergonomic design, and the employees’ personal wishes and preferences. Such a puzzle is often extremely difficult to solve and frequently it is the employees’ wishes that need to give in. Artificial intelligence can change all this and solve the puzzle in a way that everyone wins. A plan that takes all the aforementioned aspects into account is ready in minutes, says Sasu Liuhanen, CEO and co-founder of the company.  More information: Sasu LiuhanenCEO, Co-Founder, Plain Complex040-516 6467sasu.liuhanen@plaincomplex.complaincomplex.com / linkedin.com/company/plaincomplex Antti ViitanenDeal Flow Manager, FiBAN+358 45 2565 220antti@fiban.orgfiban.org

Back in August 2011, Marc Andreessen penned a piece in the Wall Street Journal about how we were in the midst of a Software revolution built on the hardware and internet infrastructure that we build and continue to develop. The main argument is that new Software firms were going to disrupt the existing players such as Oracle and Microsoft. This has proven to be the case, although the legacy Software companies still have a captive and essential layer in the tech ecosystem. With all the data that we have been collecting, a new wave of innovation is starting to emerge, and is predicted to be where a new generation of trillion dollar market opportunities. Every business tech professional who wants to succeed in the years to come, needs to start listening and take note of what Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI and the former president of Y Combinator, one of the field's leading experts, is saying. At just 19 years old, Altman (now 36), co-founded Loopt, a location based social network mobile application.

This article explores why AI is the highest ROI opportunity. How revolutionary the technology is as Artificial Intelligence (AI) progresses with each passing day, its implementations are massive and almost every magazine and report has covered it. However, explaining its particular facets and how AI and its subsets of Machine Learning and Deep Learning can transform the way we view life has become imperative. Both businesses are or will be implementing AI in one way or another, the future of the corporate world. Investing in the right AI will deliver a really high ROI if you know what you're doing.

This article explores why AI is the highest ROI opportunity. How revolutionary the technology is as Artificial Intelligence (AI) progresses with each passing day, its implementations are massive and almost every magazine and report has covered it. However, explaining its particular facets and how AI and its subsets of Machine Learning and Deep Learning can transform the way we view life has become imperative. Both businesses are or will be implementing AI in one way or another, the future of the corporate world. Investing in the right AI will deliver a really high ROI if you know what you're doing.

AskBrian, the startup specialized in applied artificial intelligence and provider of AI-based digital assistant Brian, announced the closing of its angel funding round. Experienced business angels Björn Kolbmüller and Paul Schwarzenholz (founders of Zenloop and Flaconi) led the investment round with the participation of private investors from leading management consultancies (Bain & Company, Oliver Wyman, EY, and Stern Stewart & Co.) along with several experienced entrepreneurs. The company, founded by management consultant Pavol Sikula (Stern Stewart & Co., Roland Berger), uses narrow AI technologies to build products that connect humans with state-of-the-art services and information via natural language. Multiple building blocks are orchestrated by the co-founder and CTO Matthias Ruppel (T-Systems) who brings his experience as a software architect and big data specialist. "We see large potential in this very innovative approach of connecting humans and knowledge. We are excited to help the experienced and dedicated founders to fulfill their ambitious mission," said Björn Kolbmüller.

Docugami, a startup aiming to reinvent the way businesses create and extract information from documents, has raised an extraordinary $10 million in seed funding led by Silicon Valley venture fund SignalFire, with participation from NextWorld Capital and a large number of veteran tech execs and angel investors. The company, based in Kirkland, Wash., also announced Bob Muglia, the former Snowflake CEO and longtime Microsoft exec, as a "major investor" and board member. Docugami is led by co-founder and CEO Jean Paoli, a co-creator of the industry-wide XML 1.0 standard, Microsoft InfoPath and modern Microsoft Office file formats. The startup's technology uses artificial intelligence to help users create documents such as contracts and reports that can then be analyzed in the aggregate as if the contents were stored in a structured database. Docugami says it's creating new AI techniques using machine learning, computer vision, natural language processing and unique XML approaches.

In the past few years, the lack of diversity in the technology startup ecosystem has become a well-known point of rightful criticism. The collective voices of women, people of color and LGBTQ founders and VCs has given this issue national attention, as well as exciting solutions. From Backstage Capital to SoGal Ventures and many other firms, investors and organizations, diversity in tech is not only becoming more common but also finally recognized as a necessary part of a proper business model. There has been much discussion of diversity in tech in general, and of course, having people from varied backgrounds/experiences - especially those who are committed to equality - in all companies and organizations is important. Perhaps now is the time to begin discussing where having a variety of experiences could have the most impact - not only for building better technologies and businesses, but also for building better societies as a whole.