Yann LeCun’s AI startup raises $1.03 billion in seed funding

YANN LECUN, a pioneer in the field of artificial intelligence (AI), has raised $1.03 billion for a nascent startup that promises to invent technology more capable of navigating the real world than existing AI products like ChatGPT.

The startup, which is not yet three months old, is called Advanced Machine Intelligence, or AMI, and reached a valuation of $3.5 billion in the funding round, not including dollars raised.

Based in Paris, the company’s investors include major tech companies like Nvidia Corp. and Samsung Electronics Co. as well as global investors Cathay Innovation, Jeff Bezos’ investment office Bezos Expeditions, Greycroft, Hiro Capital and HV Capital.

The deal is one of the biggest first funding rounds ever in Europe — and the latest example of an AI luminary raising gobs of cash for a nascent research project after leaving a larger company.

Mr. LeCun, who is co-founder and chairman at AMI, is revered as one of the “godfathers” of AI, credited for developing some of the algorithmic techniques that birthed modern chatbots and image-recognition systems.

The French computer scientist ran research for Meta Platforms, Inc. for years as the company’s chief AI scientist.

But since leaving Meta in 2025, Mr. LeCun has become a vocal critic of large language models — the text-based systems behind ChatGPT and Meta’s Llama — as the best method to advance AI.

With AMI, Mr. LeCun said the startup intentionally did not open up an office in Silicon Valley because it’s “where a lot of the people and money are LLM-pilled.” The ultimate goal, Mr. LeCun said in an interview, is to develop a “universal intelligence system” that can power anything from domestic robots to self-driving cars.

AMI is one of several startups building AI models to understand the physical world, beyond written text. For proponents, the method is a key ingredient for making the intelligent, futuristic robots that tech companies have long struggled to crack.

While many of the startups in the sector are still focused on research versus commercialization, they’ve found eager investors willing to bet on the next frontier in the field. Fei-Fei Li, another pioneering AI scientist, recently co-founded a similar company called World Labs that quickly reached a $5-billion valuation.

Alex LeBrun, a former Meta AI researcher and chief executive officer for French health tech startup Nabla Technologies, will serve as AMI’s CEO.

AMI doesn’t plan to launch a consumer product, but instead will spend most of this year in research and development before partnering with large enterprises.

Mr. LeCun said the startup is targeting industries that need to rely on AI models to make hardware and other physical goods, like cars, aerospace and pharmaceuticals. He also said that the company has had discussions with Meta about possible partnerships to use AMI’s technology in its wearable devices.

“There could be some products that get in the hands of consumers fairly early, depending on how the technology progresses,” he said.

While Mr. LeCun says that the defense industry is “not a focus,” one of his investors is a unit of fighter jet manufacturer Dassault Aviation SA.

The use of AI in the military is a hot button topic in Silicon Valley following the standoff between Anthropic and the US Defense Department. On Monday, Anthropic sued the Pentagon after the agency declared that the AI developer was a supply chain risk. 

Mr. LeCun, a frequent critic of Donald Trump, said elected officials should determine how AI systems are used in the military, not researchers or companies making the tech.

“At least, I don’t see myself as having any legitimacy deciding what society should do with the technology that we develop,” he said.

In addition to its Paris headquarters, AMI also has offices in New York, Montreal and Singapore. Mr. LeCun said it has a staff of about 20.

Like other European AI developers, Mr. LeCun said that its global reach would be an advantage. “There is a lot of demand from the industry, from governments around the world, for a credible provider of AI technology that is neither American nor Chinese,” he said.

Mr. LeCun, who is French, helped set up Facebook’s research lab in Paris and has advised several startups in the country, including OpenAI competitor Mistral.

His startup has raised from several investors in the country, including Bpifrance Digital Venture as well as several French tycoons, including telecom billionaire Xavier Niel. French media firm Publicis Groupe also participated in the round.

Bloomberg earlier reported on partnership discussions between Meta and AMI as well as the startup’s plans to raise at a valuation north of $3 billion. — Bloomberg News