H Company Cofounder Laurent Sifre Steps Down as CTO in Leadership Shift
Another leadership shake-up is rattling one of Europe’s most-watched AI startups. Laurent Sifre, cofounder of Paris-based agentic AI startup H Company, has stepped down as chief technology of H Company. Cofounder Laurent Sifre Steps Down as CTO in Leadership Shiftfficer, taking on a non-operational role as “head of scientific council.”
The move is significant. Laurent Sifre steps down as CTO at a moment when H Company has been building momentum after a turbulent founding period. H Company was founded in 2023 by Sifre, Charles Kantor, and three other DeepMind veterans Daan Wierstra, Karl Tuyls, and Julien Perolat and made headlines in May 2024 by closing a record $220 million seed round, the largest AI raise in Europe at the time.
A Startup That Has Seen Plenty of Change
This is not the first major departure at H Company. Just three months after the $220 million seed round closed, three of the cofounders left over what the company described as “operational differences,” leaving Sifre and then-CEO Charles Kantor to steer the business. In June 2025, the company replaced Kantor with Gautier Cloix, a former Palantir director, making Sifre the sole remaining cofounder on staff.
Now Sifre himself is stepping back from day-to-day operations. Before co-founding H Company, Sifre spent nearly a decade at DeepMind as a principal scientist, contributing to landmark projects including AlphaGo, AlphaFold, and AlphaStar. His technical credibility was a cornerstone of the startup’s early appeal to investors.
H Company released Holo 3 in March 2026, its latest generation of computer-use AI models, enabling agents to navigate any user interface and complete complex multi-step tasks across enterprise systems. The product trajectory remains intact, but with Laurent Sifre stepping down as CTO, investors and the industry will be watching how H Company manages its next chapter without its most prominent technical voice in an operational seat.
