SAP bets $1.16B on 18-month-old German AI lab and says yes to NemoClaw

SAP is making a strategic move to dominate enterprise AI for structured data. The European software giant announced it will acquire Prior Labs, an 18-month-old German AI startup focused on tabular foundation models (TFMs) that predict from tables and databases—a better fit for enterprise workflows than LLMs. SAP will invest €1 billion (~$1.16B) over four years to grow Prior Labs into an independent AI lab. While SAP didn't disclose the acquisition price, sources say founders Frank Hutter, Noah Hollmann, and Sauraj Gambhir received well over $500M in cash upfront. Prior Labs' open-source TabPFN models have been downloaded over 3 million times, and SAP promises to keep them open.

At the same time, SAP is locking down AI agent access. In its latest API policy, SAP prohibits AI agents from its products except those using “SAP-endorsed architectures”—including its own Joule Agents (still in beta) and Nvidia's NemoClaw, which integrates with Joule via Nvidia's Agent Toolkit. This effectively blocks OpenClaw and unauthorized agent tech, as The Information first reported. The move comes as SAP's stock dips amid the “SaaSpocalypse” and CFO Dominik Asam emphasizes the need to quickly adopt AI to maintain economies of scale. CTO Philipp Herzig noted SAP recognized early that structured data—not LLMs—is the biggest AI opportunity for enterprises.