Three of the five cofounders behind French AI startup H Company have left just three months after raising a $220m seed round and before the company has publicly released a product.
Karl Tuyls, Daan Wierstra and Julien Perolat — all former scientists at Google DeepMind — are leaving the business due to “operational differences”, according to a LinkedIn post from the company. The news was first reported by The Information.
It leaves Laurent Sifre — also a DeepMind alum — and Charles Kantor, a former Stanford University computational mathematics researcher, to lead H.
“While this has been a difficult decision for all parties involved, all are in agreement that this will enable the company’s greatest success moving forward and H continues to have the full support of its investors and strategic partners,” the company said in the post.
H’s mammoth seed round
Just three months ago, H raised one of the biggest ever seed rounds in France, closing $220m from investors including global VC Accel.
It did not disclose how much of the investment was equity and how much was debt, but according to previous reports, the round was made up of up to $120m in convertible notes. These are a form of debt financing that can be converted into equity after specific conditions have been met.
Due to the background of its founders and the amount of funding it secured, H has been one of the hottest AI startups in France, alongside companies like Mistral and Poolside.
What does H do?
H builds foundational models that it describes as “agentic”, a type of AI that is designed to be able to break down tasks into multiple steps and carry out those sub tasks, rather than just responding to prompts one at a time. The startup says that its models will be more capable of reasoning, planning and collaborating than those of its competitors.
The technology is intended to serve both business and consumer verticals. New York-based robotic automation software company UiPath has invested in H and says that it is planning to develop a commercial relationship with the startup.
H now has a team of 40 engineers and researchers and is planning to release a series of models and products before the end of the year, according to the company’s LinkedIn post.
Read the orginal article: https://sifted.eu/articles/three-cofounders-leave-h-news/
