{"id":190237,"date":"2025-12-18T16:17:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-18T16:17:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/190237\/"},"modified":"2025-12-18T16:17:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-18T16:17:07","slug":"yann-lecun-raising-e500m-at-e3bn-valuation-for-new-ai-startup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/190237\/","title":{"rendered":"Yann LeCun raising \u20ac500m at \u20ac3bn valuation for new AI startup"},"content":{"rendered":"

Meta\u2019s outgoing chief AI scientist Yann LeCun is in talks with investors to raise \u20ac500m at a valuation of about \u20ac3bn for a new startup he is launching early next year, according to the Financial Times<\/a>.<\/p>\n

One source with direct knowledge confirmed the numbers to Sifted. The discussions are still in early stages and could change, says the report.<\/p>\n

Founder of Paris-based AI startup Nabla<\/a> Alexandre Lebrun is also set to join the new project, dubbed Advanced Machine Intelligence (AMI) Labs, as CEO. Before launching Nabla, Lebrun was a research engineer at Meta\u2019s AI lab in Paris, FAIR (Facebook AI Research), where he worked closely with LeCun.\u00a0<\/p>\n

LeCun and Lebrun did not immediately reply to a request for comment. According to the Financial Times, Nabla cofounder Delphine Groll said in a statement: \u201cAs part of a planned, board-supported transition, Nabla co-founder and CEO Alex Lebrun will transition from his role to become CEO of AMI Labs.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lebrun will remain chair and chief AI scientist at Nabla and Groll will lead the company while a permanent CEO is sought for the startup.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Financial Times also reports Nabla has inked a \u201cstrategic research partnership\u201d with AMI Labs. Nabla did not immediately respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n

AMI Labs<\/p>\n

Last month LeCun, a Turing award winner and one of the most influential figures in AI, announced he will be leaving Meta at the end of the year to create his own startup.<\/p>\n

The new company will focus on \u201cworld models\u201d, systems that can understand the physical world instead of merely generating text like today\u2019s large-language models (LLMs).\u00a0<\/p>\n

Speaking at an event in Paris earlier this month<\/a> LeCun said world models, which learn from text and video but also spatial data like actions, could open up \u201ca world of applications\u201d in fields like robotics.\u00a0<\/p>\n

AMI Labs will be a global entity with research organisations around the world and particularly in Europe, said LeCun at the time. \u201cSilicon Valley is completely hypnotised by generative models, and so you have to do this kind of work outside of Silicon Valley, in Paris,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

LeCun has been a long-time advocate for European AI talent and startups, convincing Meta to open FAIR in Paris in 2015.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Meta\u2019s outgoing chief AI scientist Yann LeCun is in talks with investors to raise \u20ac500m at a valuation…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":190238,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[365,119039,363,364,119040,111,139,69,119041,145,89772],"class_list":["post-190237","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-ami-labs","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-nabla","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-startup-fundraise","tag-technology","tag-yann-lecun"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190237","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=190237"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190237\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/190238"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=190237"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=190237"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=190237"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}