From the Editor’s desk:
• Big news! Join “The Pathfounders Stage” at World Summit AI
• Subscribe to Pathfounders on YouTube, Spotify, Apple iTunes
• Please take our short, three-question reader survey here.
• Any other thoughts, comments, criticism: [email protected]
• Check out our new selection of tech startup and investment events.
• Be the first to hear about the launch of our member network here.
• To partner with Pathfounders, email Ana Williams, [email protected]
• Get Pathfounders news via WhatsApp (main WA feed) or via the Public channel.
This newsletter is brought to you in partnership with:
Mike’s Drop:
Yann LeCun is so French, and we love him for it. He’s never been shy about challenging the dominant narrative in artificial intelligence, specifically LLMs. He famously clashed with his former employer, Meta, on the subject. While much of the industry is betting on ever-larger language models and more and more and more compute, the Turing Award–winning scientist believes that premise is fundamentally flawed. His new Paris-based startup, Advanced Machine Intelligence (AMI), is built around a different thesis: that true AI will require systems that understand the physical world, not just patterns in text. Sounds plausible to us!
In LeCun’s view, reasoning emerges from interacting with reality and the physical world, not monkeys with typewriters dictated to by a parrot.
He has the scientific chops to back this idea up. A pioneer of convolutional neural networks, he has spent years advocating for “world models”. These are systems that can build predictive representations of how the real world works. That pedigree helps explain why AMI has raised more than $1 billion from a roster of heavyweight investors, including Eric Schmidt, Mark Cuban, and Xavier Niel.
But the funding announcement betrays the scale of the gamble. Even AMI’s leadership acknowledges that the effort is fundamentally scientific and research-driven. It could be years before it produces meaningful commercial applications. Unlike the current wave of generative AI startups, which ship products in weeks and months, AMI is more like a research lab, festooned with microscopes and Bunsen burners. Turning the theory into deployable systems seems some way off.
The wider AI ecosystem reacted to the news with a mix of curiosity but cautious scepticism. LLMs and compute remain their religion (“Blessed be the name of the LLM, Amen” etc).
Several new startups (including researcher Fei-Fei Li’s World Labs, which secured $1 billion last month) are exploring similar ideas. But whether LeCun’s approach will work, even eventually, is an open question.
The Pathfounder’s take? Let’s not be LeCun about it. Bonsoir!
The Latest on Pathfounders:
And it's just raised a $17.5 million Series A funding round to do it. London-based Outpost, has raised a $17.5 million Series A funding round led by Ribbit. By Mike Butcher
Watch or listen on: YouTube, Spotify, Apple iTunes
Backed by Ananda Impact Ventures, the German space-tech startup plans to launch its first methane-monitoring satellite mission in 2027. By Amelia Isaacs
The plan is to open 25 factories across the UK Germany, France and Ukraine. By Mike Butcher
Watch or listen to our interview with Isembard on:
YouTube
Spotify
Apple iTunes
Can Jónsson steady the NATO innovation ship?
Dr Ari Kristinn Jónsson has just stepped into the newly created role of President of the NATO Innovation Fund (NIF), the €1 billion venture fund backed by 24 NATO countries to invest in technologies that strengthen defence, security, and resilience across the alliance. Pathfounders caught up with him to unpack how he plans to steady the NIF ship after a turbulent period. Correction: In the video, we say Dr Ari Kristinn Jónsson replaced Klaus Hommels at head of NIF. Hommels has Klaus stepped into a new advisory role at the Fund’s Geopolitical and Strategic Advisory Council, focused on providing the NIF with guidance on industrialisation and scaling challenges. Dr Jónsson's role as President is a new one, and he will be reporting to the NIF Board.
Watch/Listen on: YouTube, Spotify, Apple iTunes
And the founders weren't even in cyber before they launched. By Mike Butcher
Enterprises are generating more data than ever before, but ensuring that information is accurate, complete and usable remains a challenge. By Amelia Isaacs
BIG NEWS:
'Pathfounders Stage: Code, Capital & Consequences' will feature founders, investors and the 'Pathfounders Battleground' startup pitch competition.
Pathfounders, the new tech startup media brand launched by former TechCrunch Editor Mike Butcher, is partnering with World Summit AI, the world’s leading AI summit series, to host the new VC & Startup-focused "Pathfounders Stage: Code, Capital & Consequences.”
The stage will spotlight the next generation of AI-native startups and the global investors backing the future of intelligence.
A hand-selected judging panel of top-tier global VCs, with Mike Butcher at the helm as the panel chair, will hear pitches from 5 cutting-edge start-ups in quick-fire pitches on day one of the event.
The final two chosen start-ups will battle it out on the mainstage to be crowned the “Pathfounder to watch” Start-up competition winner 2026. Applications for start-ups to participate in Pathfounders Battleground are now OPEN.
Bootstrapping, but still want to join? A portion of tickets will reserved for early stage Startups to attend World Summit AI at a discount rate. Complete this form below to apply for a discount.
Pathfounders partners with Slovenia’s Podim Conference
Pathfounders is excited to support Podim Conference as a media partner, taking place May 11–13, 2026 in Maribor, Slovenia. Apply now to be one of the 150 selected startups at this highly curated event for investors: https://podim.org/startups
PODIM will bring together 150 selected startups, international investors, corporate decision-makers, and ecosystem leaders in a highly curated environment built around focused 1:1 meetings and meaningful business conversations.
Selected startups receive:
- Direct access to international investors
- Pre-arranged 1:1 meetings
- Opportunities to connect with potential customers and strategic partners
- Increased visibility within the European tech ecosystem
You have until March 15th to apply to be one of the 150 startups involved.
Where to find Pathfounders next:
06-05-2026 — 07-05-2026 — Turing Fest
11-05-2026 — 13-05-2026 — PODIM Maribor
27-05-2026 — 29-05-2026 — Panathēnea Festival, Athens
Op-Eds and Contributed Columns
Pitch us your contributed column at: [email protected]. Pitching us more generally? Here’s all you ned to know about that subject. Please send all tip-offs, suggestions, and news to [email protected]
That’s all, folks
As always, you can interact with Pathfounders via the email [email protected] and, even, via an anonymous form if you want to tell us something you think is important, but would prefer to keep some distance. You can even subscribe to Pathfounders WhatsApp Announcements (appears in your main WA feed) or the Pathfounders WhatsApp Public channel.
Follow Pathfounders:
Pathfounders WhatsApp Announcements (appears in your main WA feed)
We are not on Substack, but we will publish headlines from here.
LinkedIn, X (Formerly Twitter), BlueSky, Telegram, Facebook, Instagram, Luma (events), RSS Feed for all posts, Podcast: Spotify , YouTube, TikTok