Yann LeCun's startup has a new CEO — and $1 billion

• Yann LeCun's AI startup just raised $1.03 billion and hired a CEO.
• Entrepreneur Alex LeBrun said in a post on X that he is joining AMI Labs as CEO.
• AMI Labs is recruiting engineers, scientists, and researchers across its four global hubs.

Yann LeCun's AI startup has raised more than $1 billion in seed funding and appointed a new CEO.

In a post on X on Tuesday, entrepreneur and former Facebook researcher Alex LeBrun said he is joining LeCun and the founding team of Advanced Machine Intelligence (AMI) Labs, also known as AMI Labs, as CEO.

"We have secured a $1.03 billion USD seed round to fuel our mission to build intelligent systems capable of truly understanding the real world—a long-term scientific endeavor," LeBrun said.

AMI Labs said in an X post on Tuesday the round was co-led by Cathay Innovation, Greycroft, Hiro Capital, HV Capital, and Bezos Expeditions, alongside other investors.

The Paris-based startup added it is building a team of researchers and engineers across Paris, New York, Montreal, and Singapore.

AI researcher and New York University computer science professor Saining Xie also said in a post on X on Tuesday that he has joined the founding team. Xie, who serves as cofounder and chief science officer, wrote that "AMI isn't a conventional lab."

"We don't intend to become one," he added.

AMI Labs is recruiting engineers, scientists, and researchers across its four global hubs, according to the company's job postings.

LeCun revealed plans to launch the startup in November after departing Meta, where he spent 12 years leading its AI research efforts.

AMI Labs will focus on building world models, a type of AI system designed to better understand and reflect how the real world works. LeCun had said that the startup will be among the few frontier AI labs that are "neither Chinese nor American."

Speaking at an event in Paris in December, LeCun said Meta would partner with the new venture, though it would not invest in the company.

"This new architecture is a project that Mark Zuckerberg really likes. He thinks maybe that's the future," LeCun said.

In an interview with MIT Technology Review published in January, the AI pioneer said he disagreed with some of the decisions made by Zuckerberg, including the shutdown of the robotics team inside FAIR.

LeCun also took aim at Alexandr Wang, the former CEO of Scale AI, after Wang briefly became his boss following Meta's AI reorganization.

"There's no experience with research or how you practice research, how you do it. Or what would be attractive or repulsive to a researcher," LeCun said in an interview with the Financial Times in January.

"You don't tell a researcher what to do," LeCun said. "You certainly don't tell a researcher like me what to do."