Futureplay Backs AMI Labs in Billion-Dollar Seed Round

South Korean venture capital firm Futureplay has joined the seed round of AMI Labs (Advanced Machine Intelligence Labs), a Paris-based AI startup developing what it calls the next paradigm in artificial intelligence. The size of Futureplay’s stake was not disclosed.

AMI Labs recently closed a landmark seed round totaling USD $1.03 billion (approximately KRW 1.535 trillion), one of the largest on record for an early-stage company. The funding valued the startup at more than €3 billion (approximately KRW 5.151 trillion) at inception, instantly positioning AMI Labs as a significant player in the global AI landscape.

At the heart of AMI Labs’ research is a concept called World Models — an approach designed to address what the company sees as the fundamental limitations of today’s large language model-based generative AI systems. Rather than generating every token of output directly, World Models learn the underlying structure of information in an abstract representational space and use that understanding to reason about and predict future states. The architecture draws on JEPA (Joint-Embedding Predictive Architecture), a framework proposed by Turing Award laureate Yann LeCun, who serves as chairman of AMI Labs’ board. JEPA aims to reduce the computational inefficiency inherent in conventional generative models while enabling machines to develop a more grounded understanding of the physical world.

The company’s leadership lineup has drawn considerable attention. CEO Alex LeBrun previously founded speech recognition startup Wit.ai, which he sold to Meta Platforms. The research team includes alumni from Meta AI (FAIR), Google DeepMind, and OpenAI.

“World model technology — which goes beyond language models to understand the physical world and engage in autonomous planning — is an essential gateway toward true autonomous intelligence,” said Yunmo Sung, senior analyst at Futureplay. “We are thrilled to be part of this next-generation AI journey alongside the AMI Labs team, which sits at the forefront of global AI development.”

Futureplay said the investment marks the start of a broader push into the global AI market, with the firm planning to deepen its focus on deep-tech startups — both domestic and international — that demonstrate the potential for disruptive innovation.