MONTREAL, July 9, 2025 /CNW/ - Mila - Quebec Artificial Intelligence Institute, the world's largest academic deep learning research center, is stepping up its commitment to AI entrepreneurship, helping transform its world-class research into startups that generate significant economic and social impact.
This new chapter is highlighted by the appointment of Stephane Marceau as Managing Director of AI Ventures at Mila. A seasoned tech leader, entrepreneur, and angel investor, Marceau brings deep experience in building technology companies and empowering aspiring tech entrepreneurs.
"At a time when AI is a defining force for economic competitiveness, Mila is deepening its efforts in translating research breakthroughs and some of the world's deepest AI expertise into cutting-edge ventures," said Stéphane Létourneau, Executive Vice-President of Mila. "Stephane's leadership will help us capitalize on the global momentum for spinouts of academic research into deeptech startups, notably through the significant acceleration in funding of AI ventures."
"Mila's researchers have expressed a strong desire to launch transformative, mission-driven AI ventures, and our goal is to help propel those ambitions forward," said Stephane Marceau, Managing Director, AI Ventures. With Mila's global reputation as an AI leader and our rich ecosystem, the path is open for bold partners and complementary co-founders to join forces with our venture scientists in shaping and scaling Canada's next wave of great tech companies."
Canada is home to over 10% of the world's top AI researchers, positioning the country as a global leader in AI innovation. Venture capital funding for academic spinouts has surged in recent years, now representing 15% of all U.S. venture capital activity. In 2024 alone, U.S. AI startups attracted a record $97 billion in venture capital—nearly half of all startup investment—underscoring AI startups as a primary engine of innovation shaping both the economy and society, and highlighting the scale of opportunity for Canada to translate AI research strength into venture creation.
Mila's venture creation efforts have already demonstrated significant traction. The institute has now incubated more than 50 AI startups in sectors including health and biosciences, energy, climate, AI infrastructure, and robotics with nearly 200 students having received training and coaching in scientific entrepreneurship through Mila's programs. These Mila startups have collectively raised over $85M in funding, contributing significantly to the development of Quebec and Canada's deep-tech ecosystems.
This momentum is further highlighted by the official recognition of Mila's Entrepreneurship Lab as an incubator/accelerator for supporting innovative business projects with high growth potential by Quebec's Ministère de l'Économie, de l'Innovation et de l'Énergie (MEIE). This designation solidifies Mila's role as a hub for AI innovation and for the translation of AI research into cutting-edge products and companies.
About Mila
Founded by Professor Yoshua Bengio of the University of Montreal, Mila is the world's largest academic research center for deep learning, bringing together over 1,300 specialized researchers in machine learning. Based in Montreal and funded in part by the Government of Canada through the Pan-Canadian AI Strategy, Mila's mission is to be a global center for scientific advancements that inspire innovation and the growth of AI for the benefit of all. Mila is a globally recognized non-profit organization for its significant contributions to deep learning, especially in the fields of language modeling, automatic translation, object recognition, and generative models. For more information, visit mila.quebec.
SOURCE Mila - Quebec AI Institute
For more information: Anne-Sophie Trihey, TACT, [email protected]
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