H, an emerging AI startup based in Paris, has successfully raised an impressive $220 million in seed funding to develop state-of-the-art artificial intelligence models. The company, operating under the legal name H.ai SAS, announced this significant funding round today.
The investment attracted contributions from renowned firms including Accel, Amazon.com Inc., Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., and UiPath Inc. Additionally, former Google CEO Eric Schmidt also participated in the round, highlighting the high level of interest from major tech industry figures.
Charles Kantor, the CEO of H and a former researcher at Stanford University, leads the startup. He is joined by four co-founders who previously held senior technical roles at Google’s DeepMind machine learning lab. Their collective experience includes work on groundbreaking AI systems like AlphaFold, which advances scientific understanding of proteins and other biological molecules.
H has assembled a team of 20 AI engineers and researchers to support its initiatives. The company aims to develop foundation models capable of processing multimodal data—data that includes text, images, and audio. These models are designed to excel in “reasoning, planning, and collaboration.”
One of H’s initial focus areas is to assist enterprises in automating business processes. The company’s AI models are also intended for consumer applications, which suggests potential offerings like cloud-based chatbots.
“Our team is united by a straightforward yet ambitious mission: to enhance the productivity of billions,” said Kantor. “We are dedicated to transforming entire industries and the everyday human experience, advancing human-computer interaction towards full artificial general intelligence (AGI).”
While specific technical details about H’s software have not been disclosed, Bloomberg reports that the company emphasized its founders’ expertise in multi-agent AI software during the fundraising process. Multi-agent AI involves multiple neural networks working together to solve complex problems.
Investors reportedly considered providing approximately 40% of the funding as equity, with the remaining amount in convertible debt, which can be converted into shares at a later stage. UiPath contributed $32.5 million to the round.
H plans to collaborate with UiPath and other companies to enhance its market strategy. The newly acquired funds will also be used to build the necessary infrastructure for its AI development projects. Ultimately, H aims to create AI software with capabilities equivalent to human intelligence, achieving the goal of artificial general intelligence.
