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Yann LeCun’s AMI Raises $1.03 Billion Seed at $3.5 Billion Valuation to Pursue ‘World Model’ AI

The Paris-based lab sets a research-first agenda that signals strong demand for alternatives to language‑model approaches.

Overview

  • Advanced Machine Intelligence (AMI) closed an approximately $1.03 billion seed round that values the months‑old startup at about $3.5 billion.
  • Alexandre LeBrun is named CEO as Yann LeCun becomes executive chairman, with former Meta Europe lead Laurent Solly slated to join as COO.
  • Cathay Innovation, Greycroft, HV Capital, Bezos Expeditions and Hiro Capital led a broad syndicate that also includes Nvidia, Toyota’s investment arm, Eric Schmidt and Mark Cuban.
  • AMI is focused on building causal, persistent ‘world models’ aimed at long‑horizon tasks in areas like robotics, industrial processes and biomedicine rather than relying primarily on large language models.
  • The company, headquartered in Paris with teams expanding in New York, Montreal and Singapore, plans at least a year of foundational research before product deployments and has indicated Meta could collaborate without investing.