In a notable advancement for AI technology, German startup Flower Labs has successfully obtained $20M (approximately €18.56M) in a Series A funding round. This investment aims to promote the adoption of federated and decentralised AI, which marks a significant shift from traditional AI training methods.
About flower labs
Based in Hamburg, Flower Labs challenges the conventional GPU-centric approaches to AI. It introduces a flexible and less GPU-dependent method. Through its open-source communities, the startup focuses on distributed AI training. This strategy is poised to align with forthcoming AI regulations.
Backing from top investors
The funding round was led by Felicis, with contributions from First Spark Ventures, Factorial Capital, Beta Works, Y Combinator, Pioneer Fund, and Mozilla Ventures. Angel investors like Hugging Face CEO Clem Delangue and GitHub co-founder Scott Chacon also participated. These investors are known for supporting open-source community initiatives, resonating with Flower’s mission.
Niki Pezeshki, General Partner at Felicis, praised Flower Labs, stating: “Flower’s novel approach to federated machine learning will make model training more secure, safer, and friendly to enterprises of all sizes.” This endorsement highlights the startup’s innovative approach to AI training.
Leveraging the capital
The investment will bolster Flower Labs’ open-source framework, making federated AI solutions more accessible. With a focus on LLM’s and Generative AI, Flower’s FedGPT technology is set to benefit from the increased funding. The latest round should accelerate its deployment across various applications.
The mission and impact of flower
Flower Labs aims to revolutionize AI model training by advocating for a decentralised approach, contrary to the current centralised standard. Federated learning, the cornerstone of Flower’s approach, ensures data privacy by keeping data at its source. This method facilitates the use of training data that would otherwise remain inaccessible. It paves the way for faster, more efficient, and privacy-focused AI development.
Fortune 500 companies such as Samsung and Nokia Bell Labs, as well as innovators like Brave and Banking Circle, are among the early adopters of Flower’s framework. The framework’s success is evident in its over 1000 open-source projects. It has led to collaborations with industry giants like Intel, and a vibrant community of 3000 developers. Esteemed institutions like MIT, Stanford, and Harvard also contribute to the platform.
Flower Labs also fosters community engagement through initiatives like the Flower Summer of Reproducibility, offering up to $100K to encourage contributions to its platform. Moreover, the annual Flower AI Summit in London is a testament to the startup’s commitment to advancing decentralised AI, attracting hundreds of researchers and developers to discuss innovations in the field.
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