Inria, a prominent French technology research institute, has given rise to a unique AI startup named Probabl, breaking away from the conventional startup mold. The company centers its operations around the widely acclaimed open-source data science library, scikit-learn.
Scikit-learn, a Python module boasting over 45,000 stars on GitHub, serves as a linchpin for machine learning teams handling tabular data, offering capabilities such as model fitting, prediction, and cross-validation.
While scikit-learn might be unfamiliar to those outside the machine learning development sphere, major corporations like Spotify, Hugging Face, Booking.com, and Dataiku have heavily relied on this library for their product development.
Motivated by a collective vision to ensure active development and sustainable funding for open-source projects, contributors from scikit-learn and other Inria-backed initiatives have come together to establish Probabl.
Key researchers driving this initiative include Camille Troillard, Gaël Varoquaux, Olivier Grisel, François Goupil, Guillaume Lemaitre, Jérémie Du Boisberranger, and Fabien Gandon.
Yann Lechelle, former CEO of cloud hosting company Scaleway, devoted four months as Entrepreneur in Residence at Inria to contribute to this project. Post the spin-off, he is set to assume the position of CEO at Probabl.
Describing Probabl as a software publisher, Lechelle emphasized the initial commercial offerings, including professional services, training, and certification, specifically tailored around scikit-learn. The company aims to cover the entire data cycle, from organization and cleaning to machine learning and MLOps.
Probabl’s shareholders include public entities such as Inria’s investment subsidiary Inria Participations, the French government through its French Tech Souveraineté program, private investors like Costanoa Ventures, and individual contributors. This diverse set of stakeholders will actively participate in the governance of the organization.
Highlighting its commitment to industrial and digital sovereignty, Probabl positions itself with a mission to release genuinely open-source projects—a noteworthy departure from recent trends in the AI industry.
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