Dear hustlers, founders, operators and visionaries,
The Austrian who rocked the internet with AI agent OpenClaw was hired by OpenAI. Is this time to celebrate the possibly first one-person billion dollar company, or to bemoan another European talent leaving for SF? Either way, it is a urgently needed win for Sam Altman. His arch rival is readying up: Anthropic sacked in $30bn in another funding round. The race for AI dominance continues. Follow the Gradient and stay tuned.
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Your talk track for this week’s cocktail party
Aleph Alpha founder teams up with Roland Berger for new AI venture
Jonas Andrulis, pushed out of Germany's once-hyped AI champion Aleph Alpha, has co-founded a new startup with management consultancy Roland Berger. The unnamed company will build "collaborative AI" that embeds expert knowledge into business processes. Roland Berger CEO Stefan Schaible is the sole investor and will serve as COO.
Legora in talks to triple valuation to $6bn in under a year
Swedish legal-AI startup Legora is raising at a $6bn valuation, tripling its $1.8bn October 2025 round. Founded in 2023 by 25-year-old YC alum Max Junestrand, Legora serves 600+ law firms across 50+ markets. Total raised to date: $266m. The valuation has increased nearly 9x since May 2025.
Mistral's revenue surges to $400m as Europe bets on AI sovereignty
French AI lab Mistral hit $400m+ ARR, up 20x year-over-year, and is targeting EUR 1bn revenue by end of 2026. The company is investing $1.4bn to build data centers in Sweden, its first major EU infrastructure push. As Europe's only frontier AI developer, Mistral benefits from growing concern about technological dependence on US providers.
What do you meme?
Food for thought
Is this code red for Europe?
US hyperscaler CapEx is projected at $660-690bn in 2026. European AI server spending: roughly $47bn. The EU's EUR 200bn AI Continent Action Plan still pales against US Big Tech spending alone…
We recently talked to Proton founder Andy Yen about the importance of tech sovereignty (Youtube / Spotify). And Judith Dada of Visionaries Club made strong points during our conversation on why Europe giving up on the model and infrastructure layers is a strategic mistake (Youtube / Spotify).
What do European founders actually earn?
Creandum released its fourth annual founder compensation report. AI-native founders at seed take home a median of EUR 110k. DACH founders lead Europe at EUR 130k median, while Nordics sit at EUR 95k despite Stockholm's hype. A fair pay worth all the hustle?
