Dr. Alexander Roth

In the news: I did not make it to the hairdresser before, but thank you to Christian Feld and Tagesschau for still featuring me on the German evening news for the start of the AI Act general-purpose AI model rules. We discussed a number of things; the quote that ended up on TV is about copyright transparency rules on how they might enable follow-on damage claims by rights holders. It is a bit hard, however, to do justice to a highly complex regulatory regime in 15 second statements :-) So, here's my more extended take: 1) I am quite happy about: – the prohibitions (Article 5) – AI literacy (Article 4) – general transparency (Article 50) – the GPAI rules (Articles 51-56) See: https://lnkd.in/enjKwNT2 2) I have more mixed feelings about the high-risk rules, particularly due to unresolved interactions with sectoral regulations, the GDPR, and tort law. See: https://lnkd.in/e6UAd_ai 3) The simplification process will hopefully be a good point to clean this up without gutting the core parts of the Act (see 1)). 4) The concept of "systemic risk" remains an epic fail due to the unnecessary restriction to the "most advanced" models. Hallucinations – a key problem with Generative AI – are likely not covered, for example. Paper on this forthcoming. 5) Regulation is, of course, not generally bad for innovation. Empirical studies show that it very much depends on the type of regulation, and that legal regimes can actually foster innovation. Europe's problems with AI advancement have little to do with the AI Act and a lot with lack of VC financing, access to a absolute top-notch talent, and the general risk mentality among significant parts of the population and incumbent entrepreneurs. See: https://lnkd.in/e43tuk7J; https://lnkd.in/emQEvHFJ; https://lnkd.in/emvfVY59 6) Now: off to the mountains for some decent digital detox. Enjoy your summer! European New School of Digital Studies Europa-Universität Viadrina Frankfurt (Oder)

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This is a game changer for venture capital in Europe 🚀 Foundation capital can now be invested into VC! 🔥 Bavaria just did what many just talked about! On July 23rd, the Bavarian Parliament passed a breakthrough resolution: Public and private foundations can now allocate up to 5% of their assets into venture capital: via funds and fund-of-funds. Some time ago, I posted: “If we freed up just 10% of German foundation capital for VC, we’d have limited partners capable of writing €100M tickets. The capital exists, it’s just in the wrong places.” Now, we’re finally taking a step in that direction. This is a power move. This Bavarian resolution changes the game. It enables a long-term, risk-aware, diversified investment approach and encourages capital to flow into EU-based VC funds. Why this matters: 1. Walk the talk: government leading by example, not empty words. 2. Think European, act local: the resolution explicitly promotes EU-based VC funds. This is the kind of cross-border thinking we need if Europe wants to compete globally. 3. Long-term strategy: a serious, educated approach to venture as an asset class. No naive bets, but structured, risk-aware investing through the fund ecosystem. This is the kind of shift we’ve been waiting for and a signal to every region in Europe: you want a stronger start-up ecosystem? Enable capital to flow back to the ones building it. Feeling genuinely optimistic: for Bavaria, for Germany, and for Europe. Find the link to the resolution in the comments. #vc #venturecapital #startups #capital #foundations #europe

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September at WHU’s entrepreneurial ecosystem: Interesting to see an increasing number of AI startups in our monthly overviews 🥳 Here is the overview the WHU – Otto Beisheim School of Management investment news for September: ✔ Onconetix (US): Joseph H. Private placement $12.9M Oncology company (Nasdaq: ONCO) with FDA-approved BPH therapy and prostate-cancer diagnostics. ✔revel8 (DE): Julius M. Seed Round €7.0M GenAI simulations that train employees to resist social-engineering across email/SMS/chat/voice/video. ✔ Conduct (UK): Jan Philipp Haas Seed Round $12.0M Agentic AI that understands legacy enterprise system so teams can “chat with” their core software. ✔ Pactos (DE) Antonio Zill, Philipp Eckert Seed Round €2.7M AI-powered platform to manage the external workforce from source-to-pay with compliance built-in. ✔ MELP (LT) Robertas Saltis Šaltis Seed Round €1.25M Employee engagement & internal comms app with secure messaging and anonymous feedback. ✔ encentive GmbH (DE) Nicolàs Juhl (Boldt) Seed Round $7.4M Industrial energy-management platform that shifts usage to greener, cheaper power. ✔ Constant Energy (TH): Franck Constant Debt Financing $9.5M C&I solar developer/operator scaling renewable assets across Southeast Asia. ✔ K2 Mobility (DE): Markus Kroeger Early VC Round SaaS for charge-planning and energy management for electric trucks and buses. ✔ Easee (NL): Elly Nkya, Yves Prevoo Acquisition CE-certified online eye exam (SaMD) bringing tele-optometry to consumers and partners. ✔ betterview (CH): Michael Wendt Acquisition Laser eye-surgery provider offering advanced refractive procedures. This post was also a good excuse to play around with the new Sora2 video generation model 🙃

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Sartiq, a Swiss Vertical AI company formerly known as Shootify closed a CHF 2.1 pre-seed funding round. The funding round was led by Founderful and included participation from Venture Kick, alongside a follow-on investment from original backer Magic Mind, the vertical AI investment vehicle of Zest and Compagnia di Sanpaolo. This investment will allow Sartiq to develop a content engine allowing fashion brands to generate entire visual campaigns, from early-stage lookbooks to final e-commerce assets, with unprecedented speed and creative control. Sartiq has already given tremendous results, from luxury fashion houses and high-volume digital retailers in Italy and Switzerland and is currently in pilot with leading European fashion houses including Guess, OVS Group, Missoni, MooseKnuckles and more. Luca Ambrosini, Andrea Ravano, Felipe Cardoso Sartiq Alex Stöckl Founderful Gabriele Ronchini #sahion #retail #GenAI More about the company from Ticino in our article: https://lnkd.in/ed7iCyzt

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