Luxury goods giant LVMH family office is making a full-fledged foray into the AI field, investing in 5 startups by 2024 alone.

LVMH is the world's largest luxury goods company by market capitalization, with founder and CEO Bernard Arnault estimated to be worth $190.7 billion, making his family's wealth the highest in the world.

Apart from luxury goods, Bernard Arnault has also been actively investing in the field of artificial intelligence (AI).

In 2024, Arnault's family office Aglaé Ventures has made five AI-related investments, with a total funding of $300 million in the past eight months.

H was founded by former Google DeepMind researcher, formerly known as Holistic AI. The company raised $220 million from a group of investors including Bernard Arnault, former Google CEO, Samsung, and Amazon in May this year. Led by former Stanford researcher Charles Kantor, H aims to develop Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), aiming to create an AI that is as intelligent and efficient as humans.

In March of this year, Arnault co-led a $27 million seed round financing for Canadian start-up Borderless AI, which is dedicated to applying artificial intelligence to the field of human resources. In February of this year, the company also co-led a $43 million financing for French start-up Photoroom with Balderton Capital, which is developing an AI photo editing platform.

Other investment targets also include some American startups, Arnault supported Lamini, a California-based company focusing on enterprise AI platforms.

In June of this year, the company raised $25 million from Aglaé, co-founder of OpenAI Andrej Karpathy, and co-founder of Google Brain Andrew Ng. Similarly, in April of this year, Arnault participated in a series A financing round for Proxima, a data intelligence software company in New York, which raised $12 million.

However, the amount of Aglaé's investment in these companies has not been disclosed.

Previously, Aglaé also participated in four rounds of financing, investing in the Paris-based AI photo creation company Meero, which completed these financings between 2017 and 2019.

Speaking of which, Bernard Arnault has extensive experience in investing in successful technology startups. His family office invested in Netflix in 1999, Spotify in 2014, and Airbnb in 2015.

Since 2017, Aglaé has made 153 investments, 53 of which are in technology companies.

It is worth noting that LV, the luxury goods group, has been constantly trying AI, this emerging field in recent years.

In 2021, LVMH signed a five-year strategic partnership with Google Cloud to integrate AI solutions into functions such as demand forecasting and inventory optimization. In September last year, the company held the second LVMH Data & AI Summit, which focused on Generative AI and attracted hundreds of participants.

In May this year, LVMH also participated in the annual technology trade fair VivaTech in Paris, and has been involved since the first edition in 2016.

At the VivaTech trade show, LVMH Group presented seven trophies to startups nominated for various innovation awards, including the Chinese company FancyTech - which uses generative artificial intelligence to develop video production software, and the company BLNG, which uses AI technology to transform jewelry sketches into visual designs.

Arnault also stated at the VivaTech exhibition that in order to withstand the test of time, the company must emphasize values such as creativity, quality, entrepreneurial spirit, and efficiency.