A harsh assessment of the AI sector by European fintech founders suggests that many of the founders of European AI startups “just want to make quick money” and had no exposure to the sector 18 months prior to ChatGPT’s launch.
Christian Frahm is the CEO and founder of United Fintech, a fintech company founded in 2020 that aims to acquire and expand fintech companies in the capital markets sector.
When asked about a possible acquisition of United Fintech in the AI space, Frahm said:
“We believe the AI space is critical to all our clients and to our business, and it’s something we take very seriously.”
But he warned that many companies are jumping on the AI bandwagon “to make a quick buck”.
He said:
“It’s a difficult space right now because when you have this much disruption in any space, you get a lot of early adopters, you get a lot of really smart technologists who come up with great businesses and great ideas.
“But unfortunately, there are a lot of people out there who aren’t necessarily great visionaries and just want to make a quick buck.
“We’re struggling to figure out who is developing the core AI capabilities and who is leveraging large language models to build some kind of interface on top of it.
“Right now, we’re seeing that most areas are too much copycat, rather than actual cost-saving and revenue-generating use cases.”
Frahm said the AI sector mirrors the rise of cryptocurrencies, with less trustworthy companies entering the space.
Frahm added:
“We’re looking for a small minority of people who are building long-term sustainable AI workflows around language models and aren’t trying to pose as an AI company, which unfortunately is essentially what most of the fields we see today are like.
“We looked at the backgrounds of the people who developed these companies, and most of the people who are now AI founders had never even been exposed to AI 18 months before ChatGPT launched.
I think the simple question is, “Were you involved in AI before ChatGPT was publicly released?” This is a very simple question. Here’s how we think about it now.
Generative AI came to public attention in 2022 when OpenAI launched ChatGPT. In just two months, ChatGPT reached 100 million users,
London-based United Fintech has acquired several fintech companies, employing over 160 people across eight countries, including Cobalt, FairExchange, TTM Zero, Athena Systems and Netdania.
United Fintech’s institutional investors include BNP Paribas, Danske Bank and Citi.
