
Yann LeCun’s second attempt at a VC fund lands with $100M and Gemini’s co-lead as a partner
THE SO WHAT
A $100M fund led by Yann LeCun and Oriol Vinyals concentrates both capital and deep technical judgment in early-stage AI. Founders pitching them should expect harder questions on scientific novelty and architecture — and incumbents should watch where this fund places its bets as an early map of the next research wave.
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