We are proud to announce the closing of our first investment round of €1M, led by venture capital investor Curiosity. With this funding, we will further grow our team, expand our product, work on a community version of our explainable AI software and further scale our business.

While more and more companies and industries are using Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) for efficient and smart business operations, Deeploy offers software to manage, justify and explain the efforts and choices made by the algorithms. We’re dedicated to developing software that makes AI explainable, trustworthy and accountable. 

The funding raised will be used for further software development aimed at serving large enterprise customers and building a professional sales organization in preparation for future international expansion. In the long term, we also aspire to further develop the current cloud-based software into a full SaaS solution.

Why we chose Curiosity

Curiosity is a new venture capital firm, founded by Herman Kienhuis (previously director of KPN Ventures), and Maurice Beckand Verwee (founder of Crosspring), that focuses on supporting European founders in building responsible AI software companies to serve and change the world.

Before we started our ‘road to funding’, we mapped our criteria for potential investors. We were not just looking for an investor who brought money to the table, but a partner that understands the challenges of the AI market and can help to scale Deeploy in terms of its team, product and follow-up rounds. But most importantly, we were looking for a partner with whom we experienced a good connection on an entrepreneurial and personal level.

While speaking with Curiosity, it became clear that they checked all the boxes. With their network, experience and focus on responsible AI we found Curiosity to be the ideal partner for Deeploy in its scale-up phase.

“More available information and smarter technologies for data processing and machine learning mean that AI is on the brink of a breakthrough and will be of great value to countless industries. As a result, attention is also increasing for the accountability of the choices made by algorithms. As an example, the European Union is working on rules regarding transparency and explainability. Deeploy fits in perfectly with these developments and the four experienced co-founders have the expertise to help companies with an effective solution.”

– Herman Kienhuis, co-founder of Curiosity on why they decided to invest in Deeploy

In addition to Curiosity’s participation in Deeploy, we’re excited to share that we will also be participating in the Curiosity fund and thus will be part of their ecosystem.

Entrepreneurs backed by Curiosity become co-owners of the fund, giving them an interest in portfolio growth and encouraging peer-to-peer knowledge sharing. In addition, the fund has brought together a group of experienced advisors, including Daniel Gebler (Picnic), Ulla Kruhse-Lehtonen (DAIN Studios), Patrick de Laive (TNW), Jan Kees de Jager (Easygenerator), Aik Deveneijns (Levelup) and Christina Caljé (Autheos). The advisors also become co-owners of the fund and make their time and expertise available to support fund management and portfolio companies.

Curiosity’s community focus adds tremendous value to us. Being co-owner of the fund ourselves, puts us in direct contact with other entrepreneurs and advisors. This is fun, stimulates knowledge sharing, and ensures that the right expertise is available when we need it.

We’re excited to take the next step in our journey and mission to make AI fully explainable to everyone. The upcoming years will be focussed on expanding our product, but also on growing our community of people who share our vision and contribute to our mission.