Feiyu Xu is co-founder of the AI startup Nyonic – one year after it was founded. This was once considered the “German AI hope”. Picture Alliance
Ex-SAP manager Feiyu Xu is leaving her AI startup Nyonic, reports “Handelsblatt”.
The departure of Xu and three other founding members raises questions about internal dynamics and strategic directions – including the company’s focus on China.
Nyonic now faces the challenge of continuing to establish its positioning as a “ChatGPT for companies” without founding members.
She was considered a leading force in the development of generative artificial intelligence (AI) in Germany. Now former SAP manager Feiyu Xu has left her startup Nyonic, according to a report by “Handelsblatt“ emerges.
This move marks a significant turning point for Nyonic. The company was only founded last year by a group of renowned experts, including Xu and Vanessa Cann, the former managing director of the KI Federal Association.
The departure of Xu and three other founding members sheds light on the internal dynamics and strategic realignments within Nyonic. According to Handelsblatt, differences, particularly regarding the increased focus on the Chinese market under the leadership of Dong Han, led to internal conflicts. Han, who is the only remaining founder and is a German citizen, lives in Shanghai and his stay may trigger a significant realignment of the company’s strategy that deviates from the original vision of the founding members. According to insiders, the company will be more focused on China.
Nyonic is dedicated to the development of language models specifically for industrial use, with the aim of acting as a “ChatGPT for companies”. This technology makes it possible to retrieve internal knowledge via voice command and automatically generate product descriptions and instructions. Although it is still in an early stage of development and has so far only been tested in pilot projects with selected customers, Nyonic faces the challenge of consolidating and further expanding its market position without the founding members.
Last year, the startup came under criticism because of its complex company structures. Research by the investigative collectiveCorrectiv“ revealed in September that Nyonic has a holding company in the Cayman Islands and a lead investor from the British Virgin Islands. The only investors at the time were Xu’s co-founder Vanessa Cann and Ultimate Lenovo Limited, an offshoot of the Chinese IT group Lenovo.
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