AMI Labs, the startup founded by former Meta chief AI scientist Yann LeCun, has raised more than $1bn in its seed round, making it the largest seed funding round ever secured by a European company. Sifted reports that investors include chip giant Nvidia, Singapore’s Temasek, French firms Cathay Innovation and Daphni, German VC HV Capital, London-based Hiro Capital, Bezos Expeditions and South Korean investor SBVA.
The company is developing so-called world models. Unlike large language models such as ChatGPT, world models aim to understand the physical world rather than simply generating text or images. AMI Labs plans to build its own model called AMI Video, targeting industries including robotics, manufacturing and wearables.
Alexandre LeBrun, former CEO of medical AI startup Nabla, will lead the company as CEO. LeCun himself will serve as executive chair. The startup will operate across hubs in Paris, New York, Montreal and Singapore.
Investors are excited about more than just the technology. Pierre-Éric Leibovici of Daphni describes AMI Labs as potentially “the first European company to reach the scale of the GAFAM companies.” Some see world models as Europe’s chance to compete in AI. While US firms dominate the large language model space, world models remain an emerging field. “We have a chance here to really play a significant role,” says Andreas Goeldi, partner at Swiss firm B2venture.
