Negative headlines at the former AI model startup Aleph Alpha: The startup had to lay off around 50 employees from various areas.
Negative headlines again at the former AI model startup Aleph Alpha: The startup has to lay off around 50 employees from various areas. That would correspond to around 17 percent of the workforce. This is reported by “Wirtschaftswoche”.
Aleph Alpha realigned its strategy last year. The focus should be on the customers. This means that some job profiles would no longer fit. “Wirtschaftswoche” refers to an investor who wishes to remain anonymous.
Founder Jonas Andrulis has no longer been CEO since October 2025
Aleph Alpha reorganized its management team in the summer of 2025: The Heidelberg AI company appointed Reto Spörri as co-CEO alongside Jonas Andrulis. Andrulis, who co-founded the startup in 2019, gave up his CEO position completely in October 2025. Andrulis should move to the advisory board on January 1, 2026 – now – it was said. Ihan Scheer, previously Chief Growth Officer at Aleph Alpha, took on the CEO role alongside Spörri.
Aleph Alpha has come under increasing criticism in the past: for example because of unexpectedly weak sales, poorly communicated mega financing of 500 million euros, managers who left the company and the great influence of the Schwarz Group.
In an interview with Gründerszene 2025, CEO Andrulis rejected this criticism as largely unjustified. Now, however, employees have to leave.
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