AI Hardware

LVMH CEO Bernard Arnault’s family office goes shopping for AI startups

Bernard Arnault, founder and CEO of LVMH, has made a string of artificial intelligence investments this year through his family office, called Aglaé Ventures.

By Priya Khosla August 20, 2024

Source: CNBC

Aglaé made five AI-related investments in 2024, according to data provided exclusively to CNBC by Fintrx, the private wealth intelligence platform. While the amounts of Aglaé’s investments aren’t disclosed, the funding rounds for the AI firms totaled more than $300 million, according to Fintrx.

The largest funding round this year, according to Fintrx, was in a firm called H, formerly known as Holistic AI, a French startup that’s working toward full artificial general intelligence. It was founded by former members of Google’s DeepMind AI unit and includes venture firm Accel Partners LP and Wendy and Eric Schmidt, the former CEO of Google, as investors. The $220 million round in May, which also included Aglaé, valued H at $370 million, according to the company.

Since 2017, Aglaé has made a total of 153 investments, according to Fintrx data, with 53 in technology, 17 in consumer goods, 13 in business services and 12 in financial services.

In a speech in May at the LVMH Innovation Awards, Arnault said he invested in 75 startups in the 1990s, and “some of them made it, but many didn’t.”

“The startup mentality is very close to our values: creativity, quality — it has to work — an entrepreneurial spirit and meaning,” he said.

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