Yann LeCun just left Meta, raised a billion dollars in four months, and planted a flag in Paris.
AMI Labs closed a $1.03 billion seed round at a $3.5 billion valuation — Europe's largest seed ever, second globally only to Thinking Machines Lab's $2 billion raise last June, according to Fortune. The syndicate reads like a who's-who of strategic intent: Cathay, Greycroft, Bezos Expeditions, NVIDIA, Samsung, Temasek, and Toyota Ventures all backed the Turing Award winner's vision. LeCun initially sought €500 million but demand exceeded expectations, allowing AMI to cherry-pick investors aligned with its industrial roadmap. The founding team is almost entirely Meta FAIR alumni — researchers Saining Xie and Michael Rabbat, plus Meta VP Laurent Solly as COO — with Alex LeBrun from health AI startup Nabla as CEO. This isn't just a fundraise; it's a deliberate reconstruction of one of the world's best AI research teams outside the hyperscaler ecosystem.
Sponsor
Become an AI consultant and deliver ‘ROI with AI’ to your clients
AI is transforming every workplace – but executives are terrified of becoming one of the companies that gets “no ROI on AI.”
That’s where you come in, and how you can build a 6-figure consultancy with Innovating with AI’s proven methods for delivering fast ROI on AI projects.
Click here to request access to The AI Consultancy Project →
In the News
When the godfather of AI bets against text, Europe writes a check
World Models vs. The LLM Orthodoxy
Here's the technical bet that justifies the valuation: AMI is building world models instead of large language models, targeting physical intelligence over text generation. SiliconANGLE reports AMI will use LeCun's JEPA architecture, which learns to predict abstract representations of the world while ignoring unpredictable details in sensor data — think learning the physics of a bouncing ball without modeling every pixel. This approach is purpose-built for robotics, hardware design, and healthcare, domains where understanding causality and physics matters more than generating plausible text. LeCun told Reuters that Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses are "probably one of the shorter term potential applications" and confirmed AMI is already in talks with Meta about deploying the technology there. Meanwhile, STAT uncovered that Nabla is getting early access to AMI's models through CEO LeBrun, with companies already working closely despite no formal equity deal yet.
World models aren't new theoretically, but Futurum Group analysts ask whether the era has finally arrived, noting AMI's carefully constructed investor syndicate includes strategic players pointing to industrial applications rather than consumer chat. Built In reports LeCun is targeting manufacturers, automakers, aerospace, and pharma as near-term industries — sectors that need AI to understand the real world, not just predict the next token. Despite the long-term research focus, HPCwire notes LeCun plans to release first models quickly and open-source technology, staying true to his open research principles even while building a commercial venture.
Europe's AI Champion Play
LeCun is positioning AMI as something Silicon Valley can't easily replicate: a frontier AI lab that is explicitly neither Chinese nor American, headquartered in Paris and leveraging Europe's deep AI talent base. The timing is strategic. AI represented 35.5% of all European VC in 2025, and French Tech Journal reports that figure is predicted to top 50% in 2026, making AMI both beneficiary and accelerant of Europe's AI moment. Crunchbase confirms the round as not just Europe's largest seed but among the region's biggest AI deals ever, alongside Mistral's $2 billion and Nscale's $2 billion raises. The geopolitical subtext is clear: as US-China AI competition intensifies, LeCun is offering European policymakers and investors a third pole, one that combines credible technical leadership with local sovereignty.
Let me know your thoughts on this new promising approach to AI!
Alexis