In November 2025, Yann LeCun walked into Mark Zuckerberg's office and told his boss he was leaving. He had spent twelve years building Meta's AI research operation into one of the most respected in the world, and had become one of the industry's most vocal critics of the technology dominating it.

Large language models, he argued, were a statistical illusion. Impressive, yes. Intelligent, no. He thought he could build something better, and he thought he could do it faster outside Meta than inside it. On Tuesday, investors put $1.03 billion behind that conviction.

Advanced Machine Intelligence Labs, AMI, pronounced like the French word for "friend", announced its seed round on 10 March 2026, just four months after its founding. The round values the company at $3.5 billion on a pre-money basis and is believed to be the largest seed round ever raised by a European startup.

Five firms co-led it: Cathay Innovation, Greycroft, Hiro Capital, HV Capital, and Bezos Expeditions, the vehicle through which Amazon founder Jeff Bezos makes personal investments. Nvidia, Toyota, Samsung, and Singapore's Temasek also participated, alongside French VC firm Daphni, South Korean investor SBVA, and a long list of prominent individuals including Tim and Rosemary Berners-Lee, venture capitalist Jim Breyer, entrepreneur Mark Cuban, and former Google chief executive Eric Schmidt.

LeCun initially sought around €500 million, according to a leaked pitch deck reported by Sifted. Demand exceeded that figure significantly. He ended up with €890 million, roughly $1.03 billion, and told journalists this week that interest had been high enough that AMI could be selective about which investors it accepted.

The company's headquarters are in Paris, with additional offices planned in New York, Montreal, and Singapore. LeCun, who holds dual French-American citizenship and remains a professor of computer science at New York University, will serve as executive chairman. Day-to-day operations will be led by Alexandre LeBrun, a French entrepreneur who previously founded and ran Nabla, the medical AI startup, and who now becomes AMI's chief executive.

The rest of the founding team is drawn almost entirely from Meta's AI research organisation. Michael Rabbat, Meta's former director of research science, joins as vice president of world models. Laurent Solly, Meta's former vice president for Europe, becomes chief operating officer. Pascale Fung, a former senior director of AI research at Meta, takes the role of chief research and innovation officer. Saining Xie, previously at Google DeepMind, becomes chief science officer.