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French founder of artificial intelligence startup Mistral AI, Arthur Mensch, attends the Viva Technology show at Parc des Expositions Porte de Versailles in Paris, France, on May 22, 2024.

Chesnot | Getty Images Entertainment | Getty Images

Most of the top-funded generative artificial intelligence companies in Europe were founded by entrepreneurs with experience at U.S. technology giants, according to a new report from venture capital firm Accel.

The report, produced in partnership with Dealroom, found a quarter of the 221 generative AI companies across Europe and Israel previously worked at Apple, Amazon, DeepMind, Meta, Google and Microsoft.

That figure rose to more than a third (38%) for the top 40 European and Israeli generative AI companies in terms of venture funding raised, and 60% for the top 10 generative AI companies for funding levels.

Harry Nelis, general partner at Accel, told CNBC tech giants are natural catalysts for new generative AI firms, as those companies “have been leaning forward in AI the most and … have the capabilities when it comes to compute, when it comes to data, when it comes to money.”

“They are really smart in the sense that they have seen how an early lead in this field can lead to a massive competitive advantage,” he said, adding there’s a “golden opportunity” for people with “entrepreneurial mindsets” to make their own genAI ventures.

Europe’s best-funded genAI startups

Company Founding country Founding city Total funding raised
Mistral France Paris $1.1 billion
Aleph Alpha Germany Heidelberg $641 million
Hugging Face France Paris $396 million
Owkin France Paris $335 million
H France Paris $235 million
Synthesia United Kingdom London $157 million
Stability AI United Kingdom London $151 million
PolyAI United Kingdom London $118 million

Source: Accel

In its research, Accel defines generative AI as “an emerging AI frontier that uses models trained on a large data set of content medium … to create something new instead of just analysing existing things.”

Nelis noted many of the largest U.S. tech firms have already made early moves in AI — and Europe is an increasing focus.

Google bought British AI lab DeepMind in 2014, and the firm’s tech is now key to AI products including its Gemini generative AI tools.

Meta, the parent company of Facebook, opened the European arm of Fair, or Facebook AI Research, in Paris in 2015.

Many founders of prominent AI startups developing generative AI tools come from Google, DeepMind and Meta.

Microsoft-backed French startup Mistral, for example, counts Arthur Mensch, a former DeepMind AI scientist, as its CEO. Co-founders Timothee Lacroix and Guillaume Lample both worked at Meta.

And fellow French AI firm H, which is backed by Amazon, was co-founded by former DeepMind researchers Laurent Sifre and Karl Tuyls, and Charles Kantor, a former Stanford University student.

Mistral has raised $1 billion of funding to date, according to Accel, while H, which is only a few months old, has already raised $235 million.

Google is the top producer of new generative AI startups in Europe and Israel, Accel said, with 11.3% of genAI companies having founders with past experience at the tech giant.

DeepMind, which Google owns, is in second place, minting 5% of generative AI firms. Meta is third, producing 4.1%.

Many AI founders are professors, too

Accel noted universities play a major role in the creation of generative AI startups. Many European universities, it said, now serve as so-called “founder factories” that produce new startup founders.

More than a third (38%) of companies have at least one founder who holds or has held a position — such as professor, researcher or lecturer — at an academic institution.

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Lourdes Agapito, co-founder of British AI firm Synthesia — which uses generative AI to remove the need for physical equipment in video production — is a professor of 3D Vision at University College London.

She says her time at UCL helped connect her with like-minded AI innovators.

While at UCL, Agapito grew to know Matthias Niessner, a Synthesia co-founder, before going on to form the company with CEO Victor Riparbelli and Chief Operating Officer Steffen Tjerrild.

“Looking back on Synthesia’s founding team, what was special about us is how we complemented each other so well in terms of expertise,” Agapito told CNBC via email.

Agapito said being based in London was another “key ingredient” behind Synthesia’s early success.

British universities are the most popular study destination for generative AI founders, Accel’s research found. The University of Cambridge produces the most generative AI companies, with 7.9% of founders having studied there.

France’s Ecole Polytechnique is the second-highest academic founder factory in Europe, with 7% of generative AI founders having studied there.

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Amazon launches first Kuiper internet satellites in bid to take on Elon Musk’s Starlink

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Amazon launches first Kuiper internet satellites in bid to take on Elon Musk's Starlink

A United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket is on the launch pad carrying Amazon’s Project Kuiper internet network satellites, which are expected to eventually rival Elon Musk’s Starlink system, at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Cape Canaveral, Florida, U.S., April 9, 2025. 

Steve Nesius | Reuters

Amazon on Monday launched the first batch of its Kuiper internet satellites into space after an earlier attempt was scrubbed due to inclement weather.

A United Launch Alliance rocket carrying 27 Kuiper satellites lifted off from a launchpad at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida shortly after 7 p.m. eastern, according to a livestream.

“We had a nice smooth countdown, beautiful weather, beautiful liftoff, and Atlas V is on its way to orbit to take those 27 Kuiper satellites, put them on their way and really start this new era in internet connectivity,” Caleb Weiss, a systems engineer at ULA, said on the livestream following the launch.

The satellites are expected to separate from the rocket roughly 280 miles above Earth’s surface, at which point Amazon will look to confirm the satellites can independently maneuver and communicate with its employees on the ground.

Six years ago Amazon unveiled its plans to build a constellation of internet-beaming satellites in low Earth orbit, called Project Kuiper. The service will compete directly with Elon Musk’s Starlink, which currently dominates the market and has 8,000 satellites in orbit.

The first Kuiper mission kicks off what will need to become a steady cadence of launches in order for Amazon to meet a deadline set by the Federal Communications Commission. The agency expects the company to have half of its total constellation, or 1,618 satellites, up in the air by July 2026.

Amazon has booked more than 80 launches to deploy dozens of satellites at a time. In addition to ULA, its launch partners include Musk’s SpaceX (parent company of Starlink), European company Arianespace and Jeff Bezos’ space exploration startup Blue Origin.

Amazon is spending as much as $10 billion to build the Kuiper network. It hopes to begin commercial service for consumers, enterprises and government later this year.

In his shareholder letter earlier this month, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said Kuiper will require upfront investment at first, but eventually the company expects it to be “a meaningful operating income and ROIC business for us.” ROIC stands for return on invested capital.

Investors will be listening for any commentary around further capex spend on Kuiper when Amazon reports first-quarter earnings after the bell on Thursday.

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Oracle engineers caused days-long software outage at U.S. hospitals

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Oracle engineers caused days-long software outage at U.S. hospitals

Larry Ellison, co-founder and executive chairman of Oracle Corp., speaks during the Oracle OpenWorld 2018 conference in San Francisco, California, U.S., on Monday, Oct. 22, 2018.

David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Oracle engineers mistakenly triggered a five-day software outage at a number of Community Health Systems hospitals, causing the facilities to temporarily return to paper-based patient records.

CHS told CNBC that the outage involving Oracle Health, the company’s electronic health record (EHR) system, affected “several” hospitals, leading them to activate “downtime procedures.” Trade publication Becker’s Hospital Review reported that 45 hospitals were hit.

The outage began on April 23, after engineers conducting maintenance work mistakenly deleted critical storage connected to a key database, a CHS spokesperson said in a statement. The outage was resolved on Monday, and was not related to a cyberattack or other security incident.

CHS is based in Tennessee and includes 72 hospitals in 14 states, according to the medical system’s website.

“Despite this being a major outage, our hospitals were able to maintain services with no material impact,” the spokesperson said. “We are proud of our clinical and support teams who worked through the multi-day outage with professionalism and a commitment to delivering high-quality, safe care for patients.” 

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Oracle stock this year

Oracle didn’t immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment.

An EHR is a digital version of a patient’s medical history that’s updated by doctors and nurses. It’s crucial software within the U.S. health-care system, and outages can cause serious disruptions to patient care. Oracle acquired EHR vendor Cerner in 2022 for $28.3 billion, becoming the second-biggest player in the market, behind Epic Systems.

Now that Oracle’s systems are back online, CHS said that the impacted hospitals are working to “re-establish full functionality and return to normal operations and procedures.”

Oracle’s CHS error comes weeks after the company’s federal electronic health record experienced a nationwide outage. Oracle has struggled with a thorny, years-long EHR rollout with the Department of Veterans Affairs, marred by patient safety concerns. The agency launched a strategic review of Cerner in 2021, before Oracle’s acquisition, and it temporarily paused deployment of the software in 2023.

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Palantir is soaring while its tech peers are sinking. Here’s why

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Palantir is soaring while its tech peers are sinking. Here's why

Alex Karp, chief executive officer of Palantir Technologies Inc., speaks during the AIPCon conference in Palo Alto, California, US, on March 13, 2025.

David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Tech stocks have struggled in 2025, as recession and trade war fears sap investor appetite for riskier assets.

Palantir is the exception.

Against a volatile market backdrop, the software maker’s stock has gained 45% and is the best performer among companies valued at $5 billion or more, according to FactSet. The closest tech names are VeriSign, up 33%, Okta, up 30%, Robinhood, up 29%, and Uber, up 29%.

President Donald Trump‘s frenzy of government department overhauls is partially to thank for the pop.

“When you think about macroeconomic concerns, you as a company need to be more efficient, and this is where Palantir thrives,” said Bank of America analyst Mariana Pérez Mora.

Palantir has set itself apart in the software world for its artificial-intelligence-enabled tools, gaining recognition for its defense and software contracts with key U.S. government agencies, including the military. In the fourth quarter, its government revenues jumped 45% year-over-year to $343 million.

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Companies have faced immense volatility in 2025 as tariffs threaten to jeopardize global supply chains and halt day-to-day manufacturing operations by hiking costs. Those fears have brought the broad market index down about 7% this year, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite has slumped 11%.

Tech’s megacap companies — Apple, Microsoft, Nvidia, Amazon, Alphabet, Meta and Tesla — are all down between 7% and 31% so far this year.

At the same time, the Trump administration has clamped down on government spending, giving Tesla CEO Elon Musk‘s Department of Government Efficiency freedom to slash public sector costs. Some administration officials have touted shifting dollars from consulting contracts to commercial software providers like Palantir, said William Blair analyst Louie DiPalma.

“Palantir’s business model is highly aligned with the priorities of the Trump administration in terms of increasing agility and being very quick to market,” he said.

That’s put Palantir in the league with major contractors such as Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman, which have outperformed in this year’s downdraft. Many companies in the space are also looking to partner with the firm and tend to flock to defense during recessionary times, DiPalma said.

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Palantir vs. the Nasdaq Composite

CEO Alex Karp has also been a vocal supporter of American innovation and the company’s central role in helping prop up what he called the “single best tech scene in the world” during an interview with CNBC earlier this year. Karp also told CNBC that the U.S. needs an “all-country effort” to compete against emerging adversaries.

But the ride for Palantir has been far from smooth, and shares have been susceptible to volatile swings. Shares sold off nearly 14% during the week that Trump first announced tariffs. Shares rocketed 22% one day in February on strong earnings.

Its inclusion in more passive and quant funds over the years and the growing attention of retail traders has added to that turbulence, DiPalma said. Last year, the company joined both the S&P and Nasdaq. Palantir trades at one of the highest price-to-earnings multiples in software and last traded at 185 times earnings over the next twelve months. That puts a steep bar on the stock.

“There really is no margin for error,” he said.

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