Bernard Arnault, head of LVMH, the world’s top luxury brand group, announced the group’s 2022 results in Paris on January 26, 2023.
Stefano Lelandini | AFP | Getty Images
A version of this article first appeared in CNBC’s Inside Wealth newsletter, a weekly guide for high-net-worth investors and consumers by Robert Frank. sign up Get future editions delivered straight to your inbox.
Luxury goods mogul Bernard Arnault is buying an AI company.
Arnault, Founder and CEO LVMH The world’s fourth-richest person with a net worth of $184 billion has made a series of artificial intelligence investments this year through his tech venture firm and family office, Aglaé Ventures.
According to data provided exclusively to CNBC by private wealth intelligence platform Fintrx, Aglaé has made five AI-related investments in 2024. While Aglaé did not disclose the amount of its investments, Fintrx said the total amount of funding rounds in AI companies is more than $300 million.
According to Fintrx, the largest funding round this year was raised by the company H, formerly known as Holistic AI, a French startup working on developing full general artificial intelligence. Google The investment was led by DeepMind’s AI division and included venture firm Accel Partners LP, Wendy Schmidt and former Google CEO Eric Schmidt as investors. Aglae also participated in a $220 million investment round in May that valued H at $370 million, the company said.
Aglaé also invested $25 million in the seed round of Lamini, a Palo Alto, Calif.-based startup developing AI applications for enterprises. In April, Aglaé invested $12 million in the Series A round of Proxima, a New York-based AI-powered digital marketing company.
Aglaé joined Susquehanna in investing in Toronto-based talent management platform Borderless AI’s $27 million seed round, and also invested in France-based AI image editor Photoroom as part of a $43 million investment round in February.
While many of Aglaé’s AI investments are recent, the firm also invested in Paris-based Meero, an AI-powered photo creation company, across four funding rounds between 2017 and 2019, according to Fintrx.
The family office’s other investments this year include Irvine, California-based blockchain company Sonarverse and San Francisco-based ADHD coaching provider Shimmer.
According to Fintrx data, Aglaé has made 153 investments since 2017, including 53 in technology, 17 in consumer goods, 13 in business services and 12 in financial services.
The firm’s other investments include digital health platform Noom and music production app World Music Media. Aglaé has participated in multiple rounds of funding for Back Market, a France-based marketplace for refurbished electronic products, with a reported valuation of $5.7 billion in 2022.
The Arnault family’s wealth is concentrated in LVMH, where the family owns about 48% of the shares and controls 64% of the voting power, so Aglaé has little reason to invest in luxury goods.
But Arnault and his family are avid art collectors, and Aglaet participated as an investor in a $9.5 million funding round for digital art platform LaCollection. LVMH has been expanding rapidly in luxury watches, and Aglaet participated as an investor in a $108 million funding round for watch trading platform Chrono24 in 2021.
While Arnault is known for his dedication to luxury craftsmanship, historic brands and emotional connections to design and artists, he is also a huge technology fan, with a history of backing successful tech startups. His family office is headquartered in Netflix In 1999, Spotify 2014 and Airbnb 2015.
Speaking at the LVMH Innovation Awards in May, Arnault said he invested in 75 start-ups in the 1990s, “some of which succeeded, but many of which failed.”
“The startup ethos is very close to our values: creativity, quality (it has to work), entrepreneurship and meaning,” he said.
