Yann LeCun raises $1.03B seed for 12-person AI startup AMI Labs

Former Meta chief AI scientist Yann LeCun raised $1.03B for his new startup AMI Labs at a $3.5B pre-money valuation. The Paris-based company has about 12 employees. The round was co-led by Cathay Innovation, Greycroft, Hiro Capital, and HV Capital.

AMI Labs is building AI systems based on “world models”. The approach uses JEPA, a framework LeCun proposed in 2022. The goal is AI that learns from real-world structure rather than predicting the next word or pixel.

The company plans to publish research and open-source parts of its code while working toward commercial products. Early target customers include manufacturers, aerospace firms, biomedical groups, and automakers.

The seed round ranks among the largest early-stage financings in AI.

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