French AI startup H, formerly known as Holistic, has seen three of its five co-founders depart just four months after its launch and a $220 million funding round.
Karl Tuyls, one of the departing founders, confirmed this to The Information. Along with Tuyls, who served as co-CEO, Chief Scientist Daan Wierstra and Multi-Agent Lead Julien Perolat have also left the company. All three had previously worked at Google's AI lab DeepMind.
Tuyls cited "operational and business disagreements" among the founders as the reason for their departure. He described the decision as a "very difficult decision for all involved." The two remaining co-founders are Charles Kantor, the other co-CEO of H, and Laurent Sifre, the Chief Technology Officer.
According to its website, H is developing "frontier action models" - AI models or agents that can perform tasks step-by-step and take actions, such as browsing the web or operating apps on your screen, without needing specific training just for that app. Some believe that such models will contribute to the next stage of AI development, but also that they're at least two to three years away from working reliably.
In May, H raised $220 million from investors including former Google CEO Eric Schmidt and LVMH CEO Bernard Arnault. The startup currently employs about 40 engineers and researchers.
AGI as a long-term goal
CEO Charles Kantor, a former computational mathematics student at Stanford, said the company is working towards "full AGI" - referring to a type of superhuman AI that could be applied to a wide range of tasks and have significant economic impact.
In a LinkedIn post, H stated that following the decision to split, the co-founders "are in agreement that this will enable the company’s greatest success moving forward. H continues to have the full support of its investors and strategic partners."
After Mistral, H is the second well-funded AI startup from France by EU standards. However, unlike Mistral, it has yet to demonstrate its effectiveness. H has announced plans to launch models and products to market before the end of the year.
