In the last century, the world underwent a series of technology platform shifts: from semiconductors to mainframes, networking, to the web, the cloud, mobile, and so forth. Each of these waves has given rise to a new cohort of category-defining companies. These in turn have a profound impact on society, as we learn to interact with technology in new, unforeseen ways. 

It’s pretty clear to us that ‘Machine intelligence’ is the next great platform shift, and perhaps the most important of the list above. We are now at the point where AI systems can achieve human-equivalent performance, unlocking entirely new generative and interpretative capabilities. This is set to transform every aspect of the economy.

At Mosaic, we’ve been investing in this trend since 2015 – from early computer vision applications, through to the rise of NLP, to today’s era of large general-purpose transformer models. We’re now at the inflection point of widespread adoption, both in consumer applications and in the enterprise. As this plays out, we believe that the European ecosystem is well positioned to generate outsized value, with its combination of world-leading research institutes, Big Tech research labs, and a bench of talented, experienced entrepreneurs.

The tough questions we debate include: where in the new “AI stack” will the most value be captured? What will the next decade’s truly defensible, scalable AI-first applications look like? What are the new moats and the new user experiences that will separate the winners?

If you’re exploring these questions too, we’d love to chat.

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The workplace is changing radically. The next generation of workers is challenging existing norms, and their supporting infrastructure. To stay ahead, businesses must adapt their tools and practices for work.

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Delightful user experiences found in consumer applications are now expected across the enterprise. This has driven a wave of specialised, best-of-breed tools that are bought and set up by end users, rather than centralised IT and procurement functions.

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The shift towards remote and distributed workforces has called for new modes of collaboration and communication, with SMEs increasingly being served by low-cost, low-friction tools that bring pen-and-paper workflows online or displace MS Office.

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Advances in process automation will continue to empower teams to eliminate their most mundane tasks and allow them to focus on the most value-adding activities.

Money makes the world go round - but as technology reshapes our financial systems, what will that money look like in the future?

We're witnessing an explosion of startups challenging convention in financial services. Europe will produce many winners, given its favourable regulatory environment and its large pool of consumers seeking better experiences.

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We see opportunities across the fintech landscape. While banks and financial incumbents continue to struggle with legacy IT, we see an entirely new stack of delightful user experiences, delivered in best-of-breed products: faster, better, cheaper. New consumer brands are being built in important categories, and Europe enjoys regulatory tailwinds - not least as Open Banking and PSD2 accelerate innovation in payments.

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Europe is also producing a rising cohort of SME-focused startups, serving unmet needs around invoicing, working capital finance and insurance. Specialised financial products are emerging for underserved participants in the economy, notably freelancers and gig workers.

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Ever since Mosaic's first investment, our interests have extended beyond traditional financial services. The concept of 'money' itself is evolving, as crypto assets tip into mainstream adoption, and the DeFi ecosystem gathers momentum. In the long run, we believe that blockchains have the potential to create a paradigm shift in the way society understands stores of value.

Marketplaces have grown to facilitate increasingly complex exchanges as they come online, and the enabling technologies have evolved in lock-step. These have ranged from basic text and images for classifieds like Craigslist, to social identity and trust for P2P sharing and location services for transport.

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Consequently, we're always looking for industries or environments that were previously analog, where exchange efficiencies can be created and the increase of participants strengthens the gains for all.

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Additionally, as great believers in unlocking entrepreneurial energy, we look for platforms that are creating new economies, for example tools that empower a new class of work, for individuals to create their own flexible, independent business.

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Finally, as most commerce comes online, we are excited to see developments in the tooling, from fraud to payments to identity - all things that will support the commerce revolution.

Technology means the extension of human capabilities: as Francis Bacon put it at the dawn of the new science, "the enlarging of the bounds of human empire, to the effecting of all things possible". Software-led businesses create new possibilities for humans to flourish, especially at its essential foundations: education and health.

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In education, we see tremendous opportunity to broaden access to the best teaching, and equip students of all ages to learn in the manner that works best for them, increasingly outside of traditional institutions and timelines.

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Decentralization is core to the empowerment opportunity we see in health. We're in the middle of an explosion of new ways to quantify biology, meeting increasingly cheap and portable, smartphone-interfacing diagnostic tools. This, coupled with a growing enthusiasm for telemedicine, creates an enormous pull away from overcrowded, overburdened clinics and hospitals across many areas of care and wellness. These new care modalities can feed back into the health system with real world evidence for new therapies.

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Great progress has been made in the last hundred years on the back of The Green Revolution in agriculture. Now, we're seeing the beginnings of a new revolution in how we feed the world, predicated on a convergence of computational and molecular technologies that enable us to design food systems and products better to support our health and that of the planet.

Thanks to ultra-cheap and ubiquitous edge computing devices, the networked smartphone, nearly everyone is walking around with a supercomputer in their pocket. There are sensors on every person, in every building, factory, vehicle and object.

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Emerging location-based services are now mass market - Waze and Uber are the first major instances and the potential impact on transport, commerce (and advertising) is huge. We're excited to see robotics and machine vision driving demand for precise understanding of location, leading to enriched 3D maps and better ways to deliver real-time location and status.

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We expect to see the car emerging as new platform and look forward to seeing the technology that will provide 3D vision capabilities and next-gen GPS to allow them to operate safely. This will drive new applications across vehicles, drones and industrial automation.