Clement Delangue
About Clement Delangue
Clement Delangue is co-founder and CEO of Hugging Face, the open-source AI platform for sharing machine learning models and datasets. He was born in La Bassée, northern France, and holds a management degree from ESCP Business School. He also took non-degree computer science courses at Stanford.
He started his career in product at Moodstocks, a computer vision startup that Google acquired in 2016. His earlier work also included eBay, VideoNot.es and UniShared, which he co-founded. At Mention he served as chief product officer and chief marketing officer, according to secondary profiles.
He co-founded Hugging Face in New York in 2016 with Julien Chaumond and Thomas Wolf. It began as a chatbot app for teenagers and became a hub for machine learning models after the team open-sourced the underlying model. His LinkedIn profile says the company has raised $160M from investors including Sequoia, Coatue, Lee Fixel and Lux. He is based in Miami.
Crunchbase lists 33 investments for Delangue, with 0 lead investments, 0 exits and 0 companies founded. The 0 lead investments is consistent with the pattern in announced rounds, where he appears as an angel or participant next to a named lead. Examples are Felicis leading Letta, redalpine leading Helical, and Speedinvest and Precursor leading Alinia AI.
Crunchbase dates his recorded investing activity from 2023. The earliest rounds in his timeline include Rimward, CrabNebula, l'école, 1337 and Factory in 2023. One portfolio company, Galileo, has since been acquired by Cisco. Crunchbase does not record this as an exit for him, and the size of his stake is not public.
Angel counts differ by database, so treat any single total as approximate. Crunchbase also shows his investing in 2024 and 2025 at a steady pace across seed and Series A rounds.
Crunchbase counts 27 AI investments since 2023. Most are in companies building models, infrastructure or tools for AI developers, and some are applied AI products.
Infrastructure and open model companies include Together AI (2024), Prime Intellect (2024 and 2025), Arcee AI (2024), Unify (2024), Nomic, Doubleword and Oumi (2025), and Pluralis Research (2025). Agent and developer tooling includes Factory (2023), Letta (2024), Marimo (2024) and Trace Machina (2024). Applied AI includes Helical (bio foundation models for pharma, 2024 and again in its later seed), Alinia AI (generative AI alignment, 2024), Phonic (2025), Sophont (2025), Slingshot AI (2025), Basis (2024) and Beside (2025).
He has also backed robotics, including MicroFactory in 2025, and a Federated learning company, Flower Labs, in 2024. His portfolio spans both software and some hardware-adjacent teams.
Stage: the rounds Crunchbase lists for him run from pre-seed (Twin, MicroFactory, Resolvd, Sourcepulse) through seed (Letta, Prime Intellect, Phonic, Sophont, Helical) to Series A and B (Basis, Doubleword, Slingshot AI, Beside, Galileo). The bulk are seed-stage. He often joins as one of several angels rather than leading.
Sectors: enterprise software dominates, with open-source and AI infrastructure, developer tools, applied AI in health and bio, and some robotics. Tracxn lists the United States and United Kingdom as his main investment locations, and several recent companies are European.
Check size: not public. We found no public statement from Delangue on typical check size or on a formal investment thesis. Founders pitching him should expect that his background in open-source AI and developer communities is the most relevant context.
- Factory: AI software development agents; Crunchbase records a 2023 round with his participation.
- Together AI: AI infrastructure and model training platform; he participated in a round announced in March 2024.
- Arcee AI: small language model company; participated in a round announced in January 2024.
- Prime Intellect: decentralized AI training; participated in rounds recorded in 2024 and February 2025.
- Letta: agent memory and stateful agents; angel in the $10M seed led by Felicis in September 2024.
- Galileo: AI evaluation tooling, later acquired by Cisco; participated in its Series B in October 2024.
- Helical: bio foundation model company for pharma; angel in a 2024 round and in the later $10M seed led by redalpine.
- Alinia AI: generative AI alignment; angel in the 2024 pre-seed (EUR 2.2M) led by Speedinvest and Precursor.
- Phonic: voice AI; seed round in April 2025.
- MicroFactory: robotics; pre-seed or seed round in September 2025.
- Beside: Series A in October 2025.
- Unify, Nomic, Doubleword, Rimward, Scenario, Boltz: AI companies listed in his Crunchbase AI portfolio.
- crunchbase.com/person/clement-delangue
- crunchbase.com/person/clement-delangue/person_overview_investor/timeli
- crunchbase.com/person/clem-delangue-10b7
- linkedin.com/in/clementdelangue
- congress.gov/118/meeting/house/116078/witnesses/HHRG-118-SY00-Bio-Dela
- sequoiacap.com/article/clem-delangue-spotlight
- thenextweb.com/news/helical-10m-seed-bio-foundation-models-pharma-ai
- thesaasnews.com/news/letta-secures-10-million-in-seed-round
AI portfolio
Investing activity
Clement Delangue has made 33 investments according to Crunchbase. 27 of those investments since 2023 were in AI companies, including Factory, MicroFactory, APEX, Arcee AI and Galileo (Acq by Cisco).
Clement Delangue appears in 1 AI deal tracked by the Lounge deals desk, rounds totalling $28M. The rounds are mostly Seed, with a median round size of $28M. The most recent is Boltz (Seed, $28M, Jan 2026).
Clement Delangue most often invests alongside Zetta Venture Partners, Amplify Partners, Andreessen Horowitz and Obvious Ventures, and the companies they back on Lounge are mostly in AI.
Deals
Frequently asked questions about Clement Delangue
Does Clement Delangue invest as an angel in AI startups?
Yes. Crunchbase lists 27 AI investments since 2023 out of 33 total, including Factory, Together AI, Arcee AI, Letta and Prime Intellect.
What stage does Clement Delangue invest in?
His recorded rounds run from pre-seed to Series B, with most at seed. He usually appears alongside other investors, and Crunchbase shows 0 lead investments.
What is Clement Delangue's check size?
It is not public. We found no statement from him on check size or ownership targets, so we do not give a figure.
What does Clement Delangue look for in startups?
He has not published a formal thesis that we could find. His portfolio leans toward open-source AI, AI infrastructure, developer tools and applied AI in areas like bio and voice.
Where is Clement Delangue based?
Crunchbase and LinkedIn place him in Miami, Florida. Hugging Face was founded in New York in 2016.
Has Clement Delangue had any exits as an investor?
Crunchbase shows 0 exits for him. Galileo, one of his portfolio companies, was acquired by Cisco, but Crunchbase does not count that as an exit for him.
Is Clement Delangue an angel investor?
Yes. Clement Delangue invests personally as an angel. Crunchbase counts 33 investments.
What AI companies has Clement Delangue invested in?
Clement Delangue's AI investments include Factory, MicroFactory, APEX, Arcee AI, Galileo (Acq by Cisco), Unify, Nomic and Doubleword. The 1 round on Lounge are listed on this page with amounts, dates and co-investors.
What stage does Clement Delangue invest at?
In the rounds tracked on Lounge, Clement Delangue has invested at Seed, with a median round of $28M.
Who does Clement Delangue co-invest with?
Clement Delangue's most frequent co-investors on Lounge are Zetta Venture Partners (1 deal), Amplify Partners (1 deal), Andreessen Horowitz (1 deal), Obvious Ventures (1 deal) and Factorial Capital (1 deal).