Sweden's J12 launches Nexus, a new programme for European data and AI start-ups

Swedish VC, J12 Ventures, has launched a six-week programme to support Pre-seed and Seed stage founders - Nexus for data and AI start-ups in Europe. Up to ten (7-10) founding teams will be chosen for the first cohort, each receiving up to a €1 million investment from J12. The first cohort kicks off in the autumn. 

Those lucky enough to secure a place on the Nexus programme will avail of the workshops, mentorship and all manner of connections from companies such as Google DeepMind, MongoDB, Meta, GitHub and Klarna as well as the funding. 

“Europe is home to some of the world’s best technical universities, and European talent currently has a huge impact on US tech, as we see with UK-based Google DeepMind, and French researchers advancing Meta’s LLMs. It’s essential, though, that globally leading companies are born and built here, and that Europe is at the forefront of driving innovation as we enter into and define the era of AI," says Emmet King, Founding Partner at J12. "We want to support founders in doing that from the earliest stage, as we have always done, but where we believe a tailored and community-driven approach can add value beyond investment alone."

"We believe in the power of creating a cohort that connects founders and companies across different parts of the AI stack - those building the tools and infrastructure that enable model development, and those building the products that apply advanced models in different verticals. By bringing these founders together with a community of world-leading builders and researchers, we aim to strengthen the companies and the networks that will keep Europe competitive." says King. 

“The power of mentorship and community when breaking new ground is immeasurable, something which I experienced first-hand when founding and scaling GitHub and the open source movement. To date, the support ecosystem for technical founders building at the frontier of data and AI innovation in Europe has lagged that of the US,” says Scott Chacon, founder at Gitbutler, GitHub etc. “Nexus represents an opportunity to change that. Its focus on founders that are jointly focused on solving the biggest problems in AI combined with the calibre of its programme and mentors, should provide a level of connectivity and support that vastly exceeds that of the generalist programmes that are out there today.” 

Main image: J12 founding team Luca Banderet, Bo Mattsson, Alexander Paterson Pochet and Emmet King