Meta Platforms Inc.’s (NASDAQ:META) outgoing AI chief, Yann LeCun is reportedly in discussions to secure €500 million ($560 million) in funding for his new AI startup, which will value the company at about €3 billion ($3.4 billion).
LeCun to Launch Next-Gen AI Startup
LeCun, who is set to leave Meta at the end of the year, is also considering appointing Alexandre LeBrun, the founder of French health tech startup Nabla, as the CEO of his new venture, the Financial Times reported on Thursday.
The new venture, Advanced Machine Intelligence Labs, is set to officially launch in January, with LeCun taking on the role of executive chair. The company will aim to build next-generation AI systems that can comprehend the physical world, targeting uses in areas such as robotics and transportation. LeCun's new startup aims to develop a next generation of superintelligent AI by creating "world models" that comprehend the physical environment, with potential applications in areas like robotics and transportation.
His new AI architecture, created during his tenure at Meta, will be central to the startup's work. The system is designed to learn from videos and spatial data, retain long-term memory, and reason through and plan complex sequences of actions.
Despite Meta not being an investor in the new company, it will form a “partnership” with LeCun’s startup, granting the tech giant access to the technology for commercialization.
LeCun Exits Meta Amid AI Leadership Shift
LeCun’s departure from Meta to establish his own AI startup was first reported in November. His exit coincided with Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg‘s efforts to revamp the company’s AI strategy, aiming to compete with industry leaders like OpenAI and Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) (NASDAQ:GOOGL).
Hyperbolic CTO Yuchen Jin claimed Yann LeCun's departure from Meta was inevitable due to Mark Zuckerberg's support for Alexandr Wang and a shift in AI leadership, which limited LeCun's role.
LeCun's new venture marks the latest in a wave of high-profile AI fundraisings this year. In April, OpenAI co-founder Ilya Sutskever secured $2 billion for his AI startup, Safe Superintelligence, giving the company a $32 billion valuation even before launching a product.
In May, LeCun argued that AI won't advance simply by increasing data and computing power, emphasizing that systems must learn to understand the physical world rather than relying solely on scale.
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Disclaimer: This content was partially produced with the help of AI tools and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors.