224 Ventures Launches With Over $100M, Adding Yann LeCun and Oriol Vinyals

224 Ventures has begun operating with more than $100 million in assets to invest in artificial intelligence startups, joined by two prominent partners: Yann LeCun, formerly chief AI scientist at Meta, and Oriol Vinyals, who left his role as co-technical lead of the Gemini model at Google DeepMind on the same day, while Shaun Johnson, previously of AIX Ventures, runs the firm.

The University of Illinois is the fund's anchor investor, while the majority of its limited partners are individuals working inside the AI sector, including researchers at frontier labs, startup founders and executives at large corporations.

According to its stated strategy, the fund targets companies valued below $100 million, writing cheques of between $1 million and $5 million, and it does not lead funding rounds, focusing instead on AI applications, robotics and infrastructure.

The launch extends the pattern of researchers moving from laboratories into fund management, since it gives investors a channel into the deal flow associated with LeCun's professional network, which explains their appetite for the fund despite the small size of its cheques.

Key terms explained:

Limited partners (LPs): Investors who put money into a fund without managing it.

Anchor investor: The largest investor in a fund, whose commitment helps attract other backers.

Cheque size: The amount a fund invests in a single company within a round.

Leading a round: Setting the round's terms and valuation and contributing the largest share of the capital.

Deal flow: The stream of investment opportunities that reach a fund before others see them.