Aarhus startup has already raised 25 million, now they are competing with American giants

This post is also available in: Danish

In the modern world, where digital images often portray an unrealistic standard of beauty and perfection, Jonathan Løw and Anders Harder Thiim, the two founders of Danish startup Jumpstory, take a different approach to the business model. Their mission is to offer authentic and relatable images that reflect the diversity of reality.

“The polished image doesn’t work anymore, but at the same time we were also a bit against creating content with technology in the beginning. But technology is here to stay, so it’s about the end result, it’s the output that’s important so it’s not just super slim models and male bosses etc,” Jonathan Løw tells Techsavvy.media.

Jonathan and Anders, with backgrounds in marketing and communications, have worked together at Jumpstory for the past 5 years, but it’s only now that they’re really making their mark. Jonathan points out the importance of focusing on yourself, because when you only have a team of 10 people and you’re up against American giants with over 200 employees, you need to know your strengths and limitations.

There’s no doubt about the values that drive Jumpstory. Despite large companies like OpenAI and Midjourney having artificial intelligence at the core of their business, it’s companies like Shutterstock, Adobe and Getty that are the direct competitors. To which Jonathan adds that there are no significant competitors in Scandinavia.

“Our focus is on making it as simple and easy for the user as possible. Even if you’re not a fancy“prompt engineer” or have a lot of experience with artificial intelligence, you should be able to use our product. For example, OpenAI’s artificial intelligence for image generation, DALL-E, requires a lot from the user to get the full benefit. We strive to make the complex simple and build a product from technician to consumer, not from technician to technician,“ says Jonathan.

With users in over 100 countries, Jumpstory has already demonstrated impressive global growth. The company has attracted many thousands of customers, 90% of which are in the US. The rapid international growth also speaks to a universal yearning for something more authentic and inclusive, which is why Jonathan and Anders have high hopes for the future.

Focus on ethics and morals

Jumpstory screens millions of images in their training materials to use technology to identify images and create the unpolished and authentic. However, they are very conscious of where they get their data from and train the model legally.

“OpenAI’s “GPT engine” is under heavy fire for refusing to publish what it is trained on and where they gathered their data from. For example, the American media outlet The New York Times has sued them for 10 billion dollars,” Jonathan explains.

With a bit of a laugh in his voice, he compares the whole situation to the breakup of the music industry when Napster stormed onto the scene in the 00s and Spotify followed with a licensed version. For Jonathan, it’s the point that technology will always be ahead of legislation that he finds a bit absurd.

This automatically led the conversation towards the importance of the public discussion around artificial intelligence, getting it on the political agenda, with a view to an ethical use of the technology as there is still an extraordinary amount of media coverage around it.

“This is especially important while we’re still understanding the technology. There are many futurists who talk about artificial intelligence having consciousness in 10 years, but first we as humans need to be able to define what consciousness actually is.”

Jonathan appeals for people to put their finger in the ground and instead focus on how we can use the technology safely and believes that we need to practice seeing through a lot of the noise around it.

Team, culture and the Danish ecosystem

Jumpstory has a special focus on their team and company culture. At the office just south of Aarhus, they have two very important employees, Esther and Villy, the office dogs. They have the titles“Head of Cuddle” and“Head of Security“, which Jonathan highlights as particularly central to the team setup .

He believes it is more important to focus on company culture at this stage of technology development than on how artificial intelligence can increase productivity in a company.

He explains that their team is a mix of Danish and international employees, some of whom work remotely from abroad, but that he tries to gather as many people in the office as possible. There is a lurking concern that we are lagging a bit behind in terms of talent here in Denmark.

“It’s a super tough game right now as a Danish tech startup. We want to be funded from Denmark and not owned by American funds, but unfortunately, that also limits us,” Jonathan says and continues:

– Access to Business Angels is not the same as abroad, and the ones we have, they have less experience in the field. There are very few Danish SaaS companies that have been able to make the big journey. I don’t want to be misunderstood, because there are plenty of talented people at Danish universities and in Danish companies. But those who manage to combine the technical AI developers with skilled UX designers, they get a product consumers can adapt to and win this game.”

He is looking for networking in the Danish tech startup ecosystem, with great exposure to foreign experts who have made the journey themselves. It is the access to concrete and practical knowledge that he himself has experienced as an obstacle to scaling up his company Jumpstory.

Despite the reminder, he is confident about the Danish startup scene and emphasizes that it is still possible to build a healthy tech company in Denmark.