Yann LeCun
About Yann LeCun
Yann LeCun is based in New York and is Executive Chairman of Advanced Machine Intelligence (AMI Labs), a Paris-based lab he co-founded in December 2025. He is also a professor at New York University and sits on the board of Nexar. He attended Pierre and Marie Curie University. Third-party profiles list earlier roles at Nokia Bell Labs and at the University of Toronto as a postdoctoral researcher.
LeCun was Vice President and Chief AI Scientist at Meta, where he served for about 12 years from 2013. He announced in November 2025 that he was leaving to start a company working on world models. He is known as one of three scientists credited with inventing modern deep learning, and he received the Turing Award. Pitchbook also lists him as a co-founder of Element and of MusicPal, where he was Chief Scientist. Crunchbase counts four companies founded.
AMI Labs works on AI systems that learn how the physical world works, keep persistent memory, reason and plan. The approach builds on JEPA, an architecture LeCun developed at Meta. Alexandre LeBrun, founder of the health-tech company Nabla, is CEO, and LeCun has said he chose the chairman role over day-to-day management. AMI announced a $1.03 billion seed round in March 2026 at a $3.5 billion pre-money valuation. Cathay Innovation, Greycroft, Hiro Capital, HV Capital and Bezos Expeditions co-led it. LeCun joined Nexar's board on January 22, 2026, to advise on its BADAS driving-prediction platform.
Per Crunchbase, LeCun has made 18 investments across 17 portfolio companies, with 1 exit and no lead investments. Pitchbook lists him as an individual angel with 18 investments, 15 portfolio companies and 2 exits. Aggregators count differently, so treat the totals as approximate.
The dated deals in third-party databases run from 2024 to 2026. They include a 2024 angel investment in Enhance Lab and a 2024 round in PhotoRoom. In 2025 he invested in Workhelix, Samaya AI, SandboxAQ, SkipLabs, Perplexity and Candid Intelligence, and in December 2025 in Gradium and UMA. In 2026 he invested in Primepoint, Sooth Labs and ZML. Press coverage also says he backed Groq, which Nvidia later acquired in a licensing and talent deal.
He is an advisor to Nabla, Alpha Intelligence Capital and UMA (Universal Mechanical Assistant). Press reports say he joined 224 Ventures, an early-stage AI fund with more than $100 million in assets. That fund writes checks of $1M to $5M, targets startups valued under $100 million, and does not lead rounds. These terms describe the fund, not LeCun's personal angel checks.
Most of his recorded investments are AI companies. Perplexity is an AI search company. Gradium is a voice AI company that raised a $70M seed round in December 2025. Samaya AI builds AI for enterprise knowledge work. Candid Intelligence raised a seed round of about $5.5M to $6M in 2025. SandboxAQ and Workhelix are also on his list. His investments overlap with his research interests: models that learn from real-world data, robotics, and AI applied to physical systems such as driving.
Signal by NFX tags his investments as AI, robotics and data services, at stages from pre-seed to Series B, and lists New York City among his areas. It shows a check range of $5K to $50K with a $25K sweet spot. That is a third-party estimate, and LeCun has not published a check size. The recorded deals are mostly seed and Series A rounds, alongside some later rounds such as Perplexity's Series D and PhotoRoom's later-stage round. His public criteria for investing are not documented. Founders should expect him to care about technical depth. He is also an advisor to some portfolio companies (Nabla, UMA), so his involvement can go beyond capital.
- Perplexity: AI search company. CB Insights records his participation in its $100M Series D extension in July 2025.
- Gradium: voice AI startup. He is listed among investors in its $70M seed round in December 2025.
- Samaya AI: AI for enterprise knowledge work. He invested in its 2025 round.
- Candid Intelligence: AI startup. He invested in its seed round in September 2025.
- SkipLabs: He invested in its $8M seed round in March 2025, per NFX Signal.
- UMA (Universal Mechanical Assistant): Robotics startup. Seed round in December 2025, and he is also an advisor.
- Sooth Labs: seed round of about $50M in April 2026, per NFX Signal.
- ZML: AI infrastructure software company. Seed round of about $20M in July 2026, per NFX Signal.
- Groq: AI chip company that Nvidia later acquired in a licensing and talent deal, per press reports. Investment date not stated.
- Nexar: He joined its board in January 2026 to advise on physical AI for driving.
- crunchbase.com/person/yann-lecun
- linkedin.com/in/yann-lecun
- pitchbook.com/profiles/investor/152725-60
- cbinsights.com/investor/yann-lecun
- signal.nfx.com/investors/yann-lecun
- thenextweb.com/news/yann-lecun-224-ventures-oriol-vinyals-ai-fund
- techcrunch.com/2026/03/09/yann-lecuns-ami-labs-raises-1-03-billion-to-
- hpcwire.com/aiwire/2026/03/11/yann-lecuns-ami-secures-1b-seed-to-devel
Investing activity
Yann LeCun has made 18 investments according to Crunchbase across 17 portfolio companies, and has seen 1 exit and founded 4 companies.
Yann LeCun appears in 2 AI deals tracked by the Lounge deals desk, rounds totalling $70M. The rounds are mostly Seed, with a median round size of $50M. The most recent are ZML (Seed, $20M, Jul 2026) and Sooth Labs (Seed, $50M, Apr 2026).
Yann LeCun most often invests alongside Solomon Hykes, Kindred Capital, Konstantin Vinogradov and Drysdale Ventures, and the companies they back on Lounge are mostly in AI.
Deals
Frequently asked questions about Yann LeCun
Does Yann LeCun invest as an angel in AI startups?
Yes. Crunchbase counts 18 investments across 17 portfolio companies, and Pitchbook classifies him as an angel investor. Most of the recorded deals are AI, robotics or data companies.
What is Yann LeCun's angel check size?
He has not stated one publicly. NFX Signal lists a $5K to $50K range with a $25K sweet spot, but that is a third-party estimate.
What stage does Yann LeCun invest in?
His recorded deals are mostly seed and Series A, and Signal by NFX also lists pre-seed and Series B. He has also joined some later rounds, such as Perplexity's Series D.
What does Yann LeCun look for in startups?
He has not published investment criteria. His public work centers on world models, systems that learn from real-world data, and AI that can reason and plan. His investments in robotics, voice and AI infrastructure are consistent with that.
What is Yann LeCun doing now?
He is Executive Chairman of AMI Labs, a Paris-based world-models lab that raised a $1.03 billion seed round in March 2026. He also sits on Nexar's board and is a professor at NYU.
How can founders contact Yann LeCun?
He is active on LinkedIn and on X as @ylecun. He has not published a pitch process for founders.
Is Yann LeCun an angel investor?
Yes. Yann LeCun invests personally as an angel and is Executive Chairman at Advanced Machine Intelligence. Crunchbase counts 18 investments and 1 exit.
What AI companies has Yann LeCun invested in?
Yann LeCun's AI investments include ZML and Sooth Labs. The 2 rounds on Lounge are listed on this page with amounts, dates and co-investors.
Where is Yann LeCun based?
Yann LeCun is based in New York, New York, United States.
What stage does Yann LeCun invest at?
In the rounds tracked on Lounge, Yann LeCun has invested at Seed, with a median round of $50M.