Accel’s Post

🚨 Harry Nelis is a partner at Accel, which raised a new $650m (€608m; £513m) startup fund in May. He talks to Sam Shead for VC Wednesdays, a weekly series featuring a Q&A interview with a venture capitalist. ✒ Why do you think French generative artificial intelligence (genAI) companies have raised more than anyone else in Europe? France – and Paris in particular – has become a hotbed for genAI talent for a number of reasons, and it isn’t something that happened overnight. Exceptional educational institutions focused on computer science, engineering and maths – such as Ecole normale supérieure and École Polytechnique – have produced a deep AI talent pool over the years. This has resulted in Paris becoming a magnet for the likes of Meta and Google when setting up their local research hubs. Back in 2015, Meta set up one of its Fundamental AI Research (FAIR) hubs in Paris led by Yann LeCun and, three years later, Google set up its own AI research centre in the city. The momentum continues as non-profit AI lab Kyutai launched at the end of last year and Google announced a new Paris-based AI hub for hundreds of researchers and engineers in February. The world-class AI talent pool that has sprung up undoubtedly attracts funding when teams spin off to found their own genAI ventures. These teams have often been at the forefront of their domain knowledge and have the potential to produce technology that’s transformational across industries. That being said, London is another great example of a city that has a rich AI ecosystem as a result of academic institutions driving AI progress and research, Meta setting up a FAIR hub in the city, and London-founded DeepMind sitting at the heart of the UK’s AI industry for more than a decade. While France is dominating European genAI funding currently, with Holistic AI, Hugging Face, Mistral AI and Owkin all securing large investments, there’s every opportunity for other cities – such as London – to get to the same level or pull ahead in the future. ✒ What do AI founders learn when they spend time at Big Tech companies? Big tech companies have really been leaning forward in AI for years and these companies have the capabilities when it comes to compute, data and funding. When working at these companies, founders see not only what can be achieved when it comes to AI but also the opportunity that lies ahead. For those with an entrepreneurial mindset, there’s a golden opportunity to create something themselves and iterate fast, with flexibility, and have a big impact on the market. ✒ What tips do you have for other VC firms that are trying to raise a fund? A key piece of advice would be to stay focused on your core vision and strategy. You should also be engaging with your LPs (limited partners) all the time and not just when you’re fundraising. These are partnerships for many years and you need to continually invest in the relationships. #VCWednesdays #vc #venturecapital #startups #TechonLinkedIn