AI Startup H, With Ties to DeepMind, Suffers Major Shake-Up Just Months After $220M Fundraise
In a sudden turn of events, French AI startup H, formerly known as Holistic AI, has announced that three of its five co-founders, Daan Wierstra, Karl Tuyls, and Julien Perolat, are leaving the company due to operational differences. This development comes only three months after the company raised a massive $220 million seed round, without yet launching any AI products.
According to an official post on LinkedIn, H will now be led by CEO Charles A. Kantor and CTO Laurent Sifre. While acknowledging that the decision was difficult, the company expressed confidence that it would pave the way for future success, stating, H will continue to have the full support of its investors and strategic partners.
Established earlier this year, H had planned to release a series of models and products by the end of 2024. The company’s mission, as stated in the LinkedIn post, was to bring the power of GenAI to people and businesses worldwide through a new generation of action models. Despite the leadership changes, H’s team of nearly 40 engineers and researchers remains committed to this vision, working on cutting-edge action capabilities to enhance worker productivity and advance AI research and engineering.
The departure of the three co-founders, all of whom had backgrounds at Google’s AI subsidiary DeepMind, raises questions about the future of the startup. Karl Tuyls, a renowned scientist in the multi-agent systems community, led DeepMind’s game theory and multi-agent team, contributing to high-profile projects like DeepNash and TacticAI. Laurent Sifre, a former chief scientist at DeepMind, played a significant role in key GenAI and deep neural network projects such as AlphaGo, AlphaFold, and AlphaStar. Daan Wierstra, another senior scientist at DeepMind, led a team of over 100 researchers and was instrumental in shaping the company’s early research direction. Julien Perolat’s work focused on game theory and multi-agent research.
Unlike other high-profile AI company splits, such as the well-documented drama at OpenAI, H’s shake-up has been relatively quiet. There has been no public discussion or comments from the departing co-founders, and their social media activity offers few clues. Tuyls’ last update about H was on May 26, expressing enthusiasm for the company’s launch, while Wierstra’s social media profile appears to have been made private.
Despite the turmoil, H has attracted significant attention and investment. The $220 million seed round, one of the largest in French history, was led by global venture capital firm Accel. Details about the financing structure were not disclosed, but reports suggest that the round included up to $120 million in convertible notes, a form of debt financing that can convert into equity under specific conditions.
H’s standing as one of France’s most promising AI startups, alongside companies like Mistral AI and Poolside, was largely due to its founders’ pedigrees and the substantial funding. However, the recent departures have cast a shadow over the company’s future, especially given its lack of product launches since inception.
As the AI industry continues to evolve at a rapid pace, H’s next moves will be closely watched. The company’s ability to maintain its ambitious vision and deliver on its promise of groundbreaking AI solutions will now depend on the remaining leadership and the dedication of its engineering team. Only time will tell if H can overcome this setback and emerge as a major player in the global AI landscape.
【source】https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/ouYrTu7Z2AKvn2DAgIsCug
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