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Funding · Aug 05, 2026, 07:02 PM · 3 sources

Yann LeCun joins 224 Ventures with $100M to back AI startups

<cite index="13-2">Former Meta chief scientist Yann LeCun has joined new firm 224 Ventures, which will invest in AI startups. The firm has $100m in assets under management, and will look to write $1m-$5m cheques for AI-native teams. Its LP base is made up of 244 people, primarily AI operators</cite>. <cite index="13-2">224 Ventures will be run by LeCun, alongside Google DeepMind researcher Oriol Vinyals and AIX Ventures founder Shaun Johnson</cite>.

<cite index="13-2">LeCun, known as the 'AI godfather', launched Paris-based world models startup AMI Labs last year, which has since picked up $1bn in funding</cite>. The new fund comes after LeCun briefly attempted to launch Extelligence Invest earlier this summer, which was abandoned due to exclusivity conflicts with his other fund commitments. <cite index="13-2">LeCun is also an advisor to London-based VC firm Hiro Capital</cite>.

The move signals both the maturation of AI-focused venture capital and the consolidation of AI infrastructure talent. LeCun's participation brings brand-name recruiting power and technical credibility to early-stage AI teams working on applications, robotics, and infrastructure. For practitioners: a $100M fund at $1M-$5M check sizes implies a portfolio of 20-100 AI companies, targeting founders who can demonstrate technical depth and operational velocity in a field where AI researchers are increasingly founding ventures.

Sources

Everything this brief rests on
  1. 01 Primary source sifted.eu
  2. 02 bloomberg.com bloomberg.com “The firm, called 224 Ventures, is launching with more than $100 million in assets under management. LeCun joins alongside Oriol Vinyals, a researcher at Google DeepMind”
  3. 03 hpcwire.com hpcwire.com “Yann LeCun's startup Advanced Machine Intelligence (AMI) has raised $1.03 billion in seed funding to develop AI systems based on world models”