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Comment by general1465 | Hacker News Reader

Here you can see why it is so hard to compete as European startup with US startups - abysmal access to money. Investment of 1B USD in Europe is glorified as largest seed ever, but in USA it is another Tuesday.

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A billion seed is not an every day event anywhere.

Not at all. A quick google turns up evidence of 4. There may be more but I think probably not many.

For a foundation AI lab with a world famous AI researcher at the helm though, it's not so impressive. Won't even touch the sides of the hardware costs they'd need to be anywhere near competitive

Europeans have free healthcare and retirement. They consider putting their money with long term benefits not just become CEO on Tuesday and declare bankruptcy on Wednesday.

„free“

Free healthcare and retirement ?

It is an universal system but definitely not free . In Germany you pay on average 17.5% of your salary for healthcare insurance and 18.6% for retirement . However contribution caps exists . 70k for healthcare and 100k for retirement .

It is not free, we just pay taxes.

Retirement is the worst. You are basically forced to pay into a unsustainable system ( at least in Germany ). It already has to be subsidized by taxes .

Exactly. State retirement in Europes is not free nor great. We pay extra in taxes for it and it's only great for the present day retirees, not for those paying into the system right now who will retire into the future. It's the same as US social security, it's not some extra perk that Europeans have over Americans.

Top tier scientists aren't gonna be swayed by European state retirement systems.

A startup getting 1B net worth is so rare that such companies are called unicorns.

As the other commenter pointed out, this is 1B seed.

actually, they raised $1.03 billion at a $3.5 billion valuation.

Yes, the faster they get used to the thought that loosing a billion is not a big deal, the better.

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