Yann LeCun joins 224 Ventures to invest in AI startups, signaling where smart money is headed

Yann LeCun, one of the most influential figures in artificial intelligence and a Turing Award winner, has joined 224 Ventures, a newly launched investment firm focused exclusively on early-stage AI startups. The firm launched on August 5 with over $100 million in assets under management. LeCun isn’t going solo on this. Oriol Vinyals, formerly the technical co-lead on Google’s Gemini model at DeepMind, is also joining 224 Ventures. LeCun’s departure from Meta was reported back in November 2025, where he had served as the company’s chief AI scientist. Since leaving, he founded Advanced Machine Intelligence, known as AMI Labs, and took on the role of Executive Chairman. AMI Labs raised a $1.03 billion seed round in early 2026. 224 Ventures hasn’t disclosed specific portfolio companies or fund partners yet. Why crypto investors should care about an AI fund 224 Ventures has made zero references to crypto, blockchain, or digital tokens. This is a pure-play AI investment vehicle. Capital allocation is a zero-sum game at the margin. Every institutional dollar flowing into AI-focused venture funds is a dollar that isn’t flowing into crypto venture funds. Crypto-native projects that incorpor...