Whenever an American venture capitalist claims that European founders lack ambition, remind them that a London-based startup might just become the most influential company in history. That company is DeepMind, one of the leading AI research labs, with a strong chance of being the first to achieve artificial general intelligence (AGI). While the definition of AGI remains a topic of debate, for now, let’s define it as human-level intelligence across a broad range of tasks.
Founded in 2010 by Sir Demis Hassabis, Shane Legg, and Mustafa Suleyman, DeepMind has always had an audacious mission: to develop AGI. Its early goal—to “solve intelligence” and then “use it to solve everything else”—is arguably one of the most ambitious objectives ever presented in a pitch deck.
A new documentary, The Thinking Game, chronicles DeepMind’s 14-year journey, from its early experiments mastering the game Pong to its groundbreaking advancements in chess, Go, and Starcraft. The film highlights the company’s relentless pursuit of AI breakthroughs and its unique approach to learning through failure.
DeepMind’s expertise in reinforcement learning led to the development of AlphaFold, a model capable of predicting 200 million protein structures. Previously, mapping a single protein structure could take scientists up to five years. AlphaFold, according to Hassabis, effectively saved about “1 billion hours of PhD research time.”
Now used by 2.5 million biologists worldwide, AlphaFold’s success earned Hassabis and DeepMind researcher John Jumper a Nobel Prize last year. This achievement reinforced the company’s belief that it is on the right path toward AGI.
Three Key Lessons From DeepMind for European Entrepreneurs
DeepMind’s journey offers valuable insights for European founders and investors. Here are three takeaways from its success:
- Strategic Clarity and Tactical Flexibility One of DeepMind’s defining strengths is its ability to balance a clear long-term vision with constant experimentation. The Thinking Game showcases the company’s willingness to take risks, embrace failure, and iterate relentlessly. The audience even laughed when Nobel Prize-winning biologist Sir Paul Nurse mentioned how much of his scientific career was spent consoling colleagues over failed experiments. But in both science and business, failure often leads to breakthroughs.
- A Mission That Attracts World-Class Talent DeepMind’s compelling mission has helped it attract top-tier scientific minds. During a discussion after the film’s screening, Hassabis shared that he resisted investor pressure to move to Silicon Valley, insisting on keeping DeepMind in London. “The UK has always been strong in science and innovation, with a rich history in computing,” he noted. His belief that Europe had a wealth of underutilized academic talent has since been proven right, as DeepMind has successfully drawn brilliant researchers to its team.
- The Ability to Scale Quickly Back in 2010, few venture capitalists were willing to fund a startup with such lofty goals and no clear business model. DeepMind’s early funding came largely from U.S. investors, including Peter Thiel and Elon Musk. By 2014, the company made the pivotal decision to sell to Google, securing the capital, data, and computational power needed to stay at the forefront of AI. This move also ensured the ability to attract and retain top talent.
The Need for Bold European Investment
Over the past 15 years, the European startup ecosystem has matured significantly. There are now many successful founders-turned-investors—such as Daniel Ek, Xavier Niel, Taavet Hinrikus, Niklas Zennström, and Jaan Tallinn—who are willing to back ambitious entrepreneurs. However, for Europe to cultivate more DeepMind-level successes, major institutional investors must step up. Without their support, European startups aiming to revolutionize industries may struggle to scale effectively.
DeepMind’s journey proves that world-changing companies can emerge from Europe. But to foster more groundbreaking innovations, European investors must be ready to take bigger risks on bold, visionary founders.
