Jonas Andrulis is a German entrepreneur who co-founded Aleph Alpha with Samuel Weinbach in 2019. He built Aleph Alpha as Germany's bid to be Europe's frontier AI lab, positioned on transparency of sources, GDPR compliance, sovereign data residency, and a public-sector and enterprise customer focus rather than direct competition with U.S. frontier labs on consumer chat. He has since transitioned out of the chief executive role.
Aleph Alpha leadership
As of the company website in May 2026, Aleph Alpha was led by co-CEOs Ilhan Scheer and Reto Spörri, and Andrulis was not listed in current leadership. Samuel Weinbach remained with the company as Co-Chief Research Officer and co-founder.
Funding and finances under Andrulis
Andrulis raised funding from Schwarz Group, the Dieter Schwarz Foundation, Bosch, SAP, Hubert Burda Media, Christ&Company Consulting, and Hewlett Packard Enterprise in a November 2023 round publicly framed as $500M. German trade press subsequently disclosed that only €110M was actual equity, €300M went to research rather than equity at Aleph Alpha Research, and €60M was order commitments. The company's 2023 turnover was under €1M, against a €18.9M loss.
Cohere merger
Cohere announced its acquisition of Aleph Alpha on April 24, 2026, at a combined-entity valuation of roughly $20B, with Schwarz Group investing $600M in a Cohere Series E. The transaction folds Aleph Alpha into a transatlantic sovereign-AI entity rather than continuing it as a standalone European challenger, the European frontier-lab positioning on which Andrulis founded the company.
Relationships
- co-founded: Aleph Alpha (with Samuel Weinbach, 2019)
- related: Samuel Weinbach (co-founder), Ilhan Scheer (current co-CEO), Reto Spoerri (current co-CEO), Cohere (acquirer), Sovereign AI (Product Concept), AI Sovereignty