According to people familiar with the discussions, two scientists at Alphabet Inc.’s artificial intelligence branch, Google DeepMind, have been in talks with investors about founding an AI firm in Paris.
The group has talked to potential investors on a funding round that might surpass €200 million ($220 million) – a substantial amount, especially in the crowded field of artificial intelligence, according to the sources. The insiders, who wished to remain anonymous while discussing sensitive matters, claimed that DeepMind scientist Laurent Sifre is in talks with fellow scientist Karl Tuyls to start the company, which is now known as Holistic. They said that developing a new AI model might be the venture’s main goal.
Several requests for comment from Sifre and Tuyls were not answered. Regarding the business intentions, a DeepMind official declined to comment. According to a person with knowledge of the matter, who wished to remain anonymous due to the confidentiality of the material, the two have given notice to depart the company.
Co-author Sifre contributed to the groundbreaking DeepMind study on Go in 2016, which revealed a computer system to be able to defeat expert players of the ancient game for the first time and set off a global AI craze. Tuyls has contributed to the study of game theory and multi-agent reinforcement learning, an area of artificial intelligence that investigates the interactions between autonomous actors via the use of video games.
Considered industry leaders in their respective fields, Sifre and Tuyls are further supported by the unusually big financing round under discussion, which indicates that investors are very interested in the technology. This is especially true in France, where businesses tycoons and venture capitalists have poured money into startups that are coming out of Parisian institutions and Silicon Valley firms’ AI labs.
The chief executive officer of Mistral AI, an OpenAI competitor, also worked at DeepMind. The company was founded in early 2023 and by the end of the year, it had funded two significant rounds, earning a valuation of almost $2 billion. With an initial funding of €300 million, the nonprofit AI research lab Kyutai was established in November.
This new French startup is not to be confused with London-based enterprise software company Holistic AI.
