The head of the world’s top LVMH group, Bernard Arnault, presented the group’s 2022 annual results in Paris on January 26, 2023.
Stefano Rellandini AFP Getty Images
A version of this article first appeared in CNBC’s Inside Wealth newsletter with Robert Frank, a weekly guide for high-net-worth investors and consumers. Register to receive future editions, go straight to your inbox.
Luxury king Bernard Arnault is shopping for an AI company.
Arnault, founder and CEO of LVMH and the world’s fourth richest man with a net worth of $184 billion, has made a series of artificial intelligence investments this year through a venture firm and family office focused on technology, called Aglaé Ventures.
Aglaé is making five AI-related investments in 2024, according to data provided exclusively to CNBC by Fintrx, a personal wealth intelligence platform. While the amount of Aglaé’s investment was not disclosed, the funding round for the AI company is more than $300 million, according to Fintrx.
The biggest funding round of the year, according to Fintrx, is in a company called H, formerly known as Holistic AI, a French startup that is working on full artificial general intelligence. It was established by former members of Google AI unit DeepMind and includes venture firm Accel Partners LP and Wendy and Eric Schmidt, former CEO of Google, as investors. The $220 million round in May, which also included Aglaé, was worth H$370 million, according to the company.
Aglaé also invested in a $25 million seed round for Lamini, an AI app building startup from Palo Alto, California. In April, Aglaé was part of a $12 million series A round for Proxima, a New York-based AI-based digital marketing company.
Aglaé joined Susquehanna to invest in a $27 million seed round for Toronto-based Borderless AI, a human resources management platform. And, it invested in Photoroom, a France-based AI image editor, as part of a $43 million investment round in February.
While many of Aglaé’s AI investments are new, he invested in four funding rounds between 2017 and 2019 in Paris-based Meero, an AI-powered photography company, according to Fintrx.
The family office’s other investments this year were in Sonarverse, an Irvine, California-based blockchain company, and Shimmer, a San Francisco-based ADHD training provider.
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.
Other investments include Noom, a digital health platform, and World Music Media, a music creation app. Aglaé is part of several rounds of funding for Back Market, the French-based marketplace for refurbished electronic products that in 2022 reports a value of $5.7 billion.
Since the Arnault family fortune is so concentrated in LVMH, with the family owning around 48% of the shares and controlling 64% of the voting rights, Aglaé has no reason to invest in luxury.
Arnault and his family, however, are big art collectors, and Aglaé is an investor in a $9.5 million funding round for LaCollection, a digital art platform. LVMH has been growing rapidly in the luxury watch segment and Aglaé is an investor in a $108 million funding round in 2021 for watch trading platform Chrono24.
While renowned for his dedication to luxury craftsmanship, historic brands, and emotional connection to design and artists, Arnault is also a huge tech enthusiast with a history of supporting successful technology startups. His family office was an early investor Netflix in 1999, Spotify in 2014 and Airbnb in 2015.
In a speech in May at the LVMH Innovation Awards, Arnault said he invested in 75 startups in the 1990s, and “some people made it, but many did not.”
“The startup mentality is very close to our values: creativity, quality – must work – passion and the meaning of entrepreneurship,” he said.