Presage hires Tony Tung (former Meta) and prepares for San Francisco

Key Takeaways

1Tony Tung, former AI research director at Meta, joins Presage as co-founder and chief scientist

2Presage is developing "Digital World Models" to anticipate failures in IT infrastructure and is preparing to launch Cloud-1

3The startup, funded with 2.3 million euros by WeLoveFounders, Kima Ventures, and ID4, plans to set up a team in San Francisco

Why it matters : This high-level recruitment comes as Presage accelerates its technological and international development amid a return of French talent from Silicon Valley.

The startup Presage has appointed Tony Tung as its Chief Scientist, who spent nearly a decade at Meta. At the same time, it announces a presence in San Francisco and continues the development of models aimed at predicting failures in IT infrastructures.

Presage Targets the United States and Names Its Investors

Presage is preparing for an acceleration across the Atlantic. The startup plans to set up part of its team in San Francisco to develop partnerships and get closer to American cloud players. Its investors include WeLoveFounders, Kima Ventures, and ID4. Since its inception, the company has raised €2.3 million.

Tony Tung Becomes Co-Founder and Chief Scientist

Tony Tung joins Presage as a co-founder and Chief Scientist. Formerly the Director of AI Research at Meta, he spent nearly ten years in Silicon Valley. An engineering graduate and PhD from Télécom Paris, he joined Meta in 2016, initially working in virtual reality teams before moving into AI research, where he led several teams of researchers and engineers and managed R&D programs. Prior to this, he worked in academia, notably at Kyoto University.

Tony Tung Leads the Scientific Strategy Around Cloud-1

At Presage, Tony Tung is tasked with defining the scientific and technological vision and overseeing the development of Cloud-1, the startup's foundational model. Presage designs "Digital World Models," digital representations intended to assimilate the functioning of an infrastructure in order to replicate its behaviors and predict potential incidents. The company aims to develop models capable of analyzing IT infrastructures to help organizations anticipate failures, identify congestion points, and measure the impact of changes before they go live. Presage also states its intention to design "world models" for artificial intelligence.

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A Technological Bet and a Context of Talent Returns

Arthur Chevalier asserts that Tony Tung has developed models that learn the dynamics of complex systems and highlights the rarity of profiles that combine his scientific level with experience in managing large-scale programs. The arrival of Tony Tung is presented as a means for Presage to reach a new technological milestone, and attracting a profile who has spent nearly a decade at Meta is described as a strong signal for a still-young startup. This recruitment comes at a time when other French companies have recently convinced established profiles in Silicon Valley to return to France: in January, Doctolib hired Pierre Fite-Georgel (former Niantic) and Alexandre Sahyoun (former Meta), which Stanislas Niox-Chateau described as a "very strong signal" for the European ecosystem; the quantum startup C12 then attracted Julien Sarry after nearly eight years at Apple. It is not established that these returns will be permanent. Presage, founded in 2024 by Benjamin Rey and Arthur Chevalier, also presents its expansion into Silicon Valley as concurrent with the arrival of a French individual who spent nearly ten years there.