Spotify founder Ek invests 100 million euros

Hamburg It is one of the most controversial fields for the use of artificial intelligence (AI) – and at the same time one of the most promising: the military. Daniel Ek is now investing in this area. The Swede has not yet appeared as a gun fanatic, but with the music streaming service Spotify he founded, he has already revolutionized an entire industry.

And the 38-year-old’s ambitions remain high: He wants to prove that Spotify, as a European success story, is no exception. According to Ek, digital world market giants could also emerge in series here. Last summer, he provided his Prima Materia fund with one billion euros from his assets specifically for this purpose.

The money is to flow into European deep-tech companies over the next ten years – in other words, into companies that use scientific research to solve fundamental problems. He is helped by his fortune, which “Forbes” estimates at $ 4.8 billion.

Ek claims to have discovered one of the first useful locations for his capital in Munich. That’s why he’s investing 100 million euros in the concept of three founders who want to advance Europe in military AI. That is an unusually high sum for the first growth round of a German software start-up.

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The Helsing company, which was only founded at the beginning of the year, is about a central application: It wants to use AI to improve enemy intelligence. This could help officers to better assess combat situations or to select military targets more precisely.

“Europe has a great opportunity to be a leader in building dynamic AI systems that are ethical, transparent and responsible,” said Ek, explaining the high investment in the young company with just 70 employees in a written statement. He leaves the explanation of the details to the founders – although Ek moves into the board himself. Spotify also did not comment on request.

The two co-founders Gundbert Scherf and Torsten Reil, on the other hand, describe their vision to the Handelsblatt in their first public conversation about Helsing. Both want to develop software that recognizes patterns behind the data from cameras, thermal images, radar data and other sensors. A large part of the evaluation should take place directly on the sensor, for example on the cameras of reconnaissance aircraft. So-called edge computing manages to get by without a data connection if necessary – for example in real use when the enemy disrupts the radio.

“We want to create a picture of the situation that enables the best possible decisions,” said Scherf. AI can evaluate images and data faster and more precisely and at the same time take more data into account, for example 360-degree images from helicopters.

Great need, tough criticism

The 39-year-old is familiar with the needs of the NATO armed forces: from 2014 to 2016 in the Ministry of Defense he helped to develop the cyber and information space command and converted the procurement of major armaments projects. Most recently, he worked for McKinsey. Therefore, he knows the chances of AI in the military, but also the criticism of the technology.

A number of misjudgments in the operations of Western forces in Iraq and Afghanistan show that the investigation has not always been sufficiently successful. In 2010, for example, the Bundeswehr came under fire for an attack on hijacked tank trucks that killed many Afghan civilians. In the future, AI could help to better assess situations and differentiate between military and civilian targets.

However, there are also significant concerns about the use of AI in combat. Critics fear that self-guided missiles and drones could increasingly automatically make the decision as to which targets they are heading for. Such systems should already be ready for the market and in use. Here, too, manufacturers combine AI and edge computing to form autonomous systems.

The “Spiegel” recently warned “of flying killer robots that could get out of control, free from a sense of proportion, pity and inhibition to kill”. Some founders in the field therefore explicitly rule out military contracts – for example the drone developers at Wingcopter.

Torsten Reil (left) and Gundbert Scherf

The two founders want to develop software that recognizes patterns behind the data from cameras, thermal images, radar data and other sensors.

(Photo: James Pearson-Howes)

Scherf tries to forestall such criticism and turn it into a positive one. “We need such skills sovereign in Europe so that we can anchor our values ​​technologically,” said Scherf. “We only want to use AI to make people’s decisions more reliable,” he promised. Helsing is therefore expressly addressing democratic European states and is an alternative to AI software from abroad. A European solution opens up the possibility of setting your own standards for the ethics and transparency of such AI.

As customers, the founders see either the respective armies and security authorities directly or weapons manufacturers who want to integrate the software into their systems. There are already talks with the first partners. Helsing is initially developing the technology with the collected risk capital for its own account, i.e. without an official mandate or funding. The founders want to explore the possibilities of AI without being restricted by a tender.

The Helsing founders do not only concentrate on the German armed forces, they want to act internationally. Locations in Great Britain and France, for example, should enable access to the respective national authorities – also supported by consultants from the British defense sector, for example.

Helsing had already raised EUR 8.5 million in start-up capital in the spring, among others from the Zalando founders Robert Gentz ​​and Rubin Ritter. In addition to Eik’s deep-tech fund Prima Materia, the previous investors are investing a further 2.5 million euros in the current round.

Diverse founding team

The bridge between the founders and the new major investor Ek is co-founder Reil. The trained AI developer had previously set up a game company in Great Britain and sold it to Zynga in 2014 for around half a billion euros. Therefore, he also knows the Spotify founder, who is well connected in the scene. Reil said he had been in touch with the Spotify founder for a long time. Both agreed that Europe needed its own global players in key technologies. The continent has some catching up to do with the USA and China, especially when it comes to AI.

The 48-year-old Reil emphasized that he was able to convince Ek about the investment, especially with the founders’ different backgrounds, who showed the spectrum of talents in Europe. The third member of the founding team, the physicist Niklas Köhler, is also active at the Munich-based deep learning start-up Hellsicht, which is working on solutions for industry and medicine.

Robert Fink, a former chief architect at the US AI provider Palantir, who also supplies security authorities, is the chief technology officer. In future, Ek will insist that he set European standards.

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