Breega

Benjamin Deplus, a rare double‑exited founder turned venture capital partner, brings firsthand experience building and selling two startups to pre‑seed/seed investing and is frequently featured in his firm's branded content.

Dan Shellard, a nearly 15-year founder who became a partner at his former investor after being portfolio-backed, prioritizes unfair distribution advantages and complementary co-founders with domain ownership over product quality.

Maximilien Bacot is co-founder and general partner at Breega, a European venture capital fund established in 2014 that focuses on seed-stage technology investments. He previously founded Titane, a digital transformation consulting firm, and began his career as a digital consultant at Beijaflore, where he contributed to the Tele2 unbundling and digital offering. At Breega, he serves as head of seed investments and COO, overseeing a portfolio of more than 70 investments, and holds board positions at several portfolio companies including Didomi, Alice&Bob, CrowdSec, Hemea, BeOp, and Gouach.

A Partner at Core, Edwin previously worked in GCA Advisors' M&A and Private Capital practices with a focus on fintech. He graduated with honors from Princeton and focuses on companies improving the lives of low- and moderate-income families.

Matthieu Vallin is a Partner at Breega, a venture capital firm managing €700M in assets with offices in London and Paris. He invests in seed to Series A+ stage companies across digital, climate, and deep technology sectors in Europe and Africa, with particular focus on health tech and AI infrastructure. Previously, he was an investor at Octopus Ventures, where he concentrated on digital health, SaaS, and clinical-grade AI applications.

Melvyn Lubega is a Senior Partner at E3 Capital with a focus on scaling technology-enabled businesses in Africa and globally. He was part of the founding team of one of South Africa's early unicorns and later served as Head of Africa and an executive committee member at a European venture capital firm. His earlier career included roles at Boston Consulting Group and Goldman Sachs, along with listed company board positions and public sector advisory work. He holds an undergraduate degree from the University of Cape Town and two master's degrees from the University of Oxford, where he was a Rhodes Scholar.

Driss Ibenmansour, a Partner, leads early-stage investments focused on North and Francophone Africa, operating bilingually between Paris, Cairo and Casablanca while building community and bridging European capital to African startups.

Matthieu Vallin focuses on health, deeptech and AI, championing BCIs and neurotech for industrial and consumer uses like humanoid training and education while moving scientific AI from labs to mainstream.

Nour Alnuaimi, a London-based partner, backs early-stage Digital, Climate and Deep Tech founders across the UK and Africa and champions agent-led, AI-driven marketplace models.

Sébastien Boucraut, a rare Chief Scaling Officer in European VC, focuses on the first 12 months, running an industrialized platform with codified playbooks and prioritizing durable fundamentals over valuation races.

Tosin Faniro-Dada, former CEO of Endeavor Nigeria, scales African entrepreneurs through ecosystem-building, co-leads an Africa strategy targeting MSMEs and real-economy businesses, and publishes data-driven sector theses while representing the fund.

Cléa Dosne, a Principal who founded malibou before becoming an investor, brings founder perspective and hands-on governance as Board Observer at Carbon Maps and Mila, working closely with founding teams.

Victor Drault is a Venture Partner at Raisers Partners, where his work spans advisory, M&A, fundraising, and investments. He previously spent nine years as a venture capital investor, including a partner role at Breega, along with over four years as an entrepreneur in the edtech and marketplace sectors and a year in private equity. He holds degrees from ESCP Europe and Ecole Centrale de Lille.

François Paulus is Co-Founder and Executive Chairman of Breega, a venture capital fund that invests between €500K and €10M in technology start-ups. Prior to founding Breega, he spent 10 years in consulting followed by 9 years at LD COM / neuf cegetel, where he held roles including Business Development, Sales VP, Network VP and FTTH VP, and served on the Executive Committee from 2004 to 2007. He subsequently worked as a business angel and independent board member before co-founding Breega.

Lucile Beaume is a venture capital investor at Breega and serves as a board observer at Dalma.

Paul-Adrien Marie is an Investment Manager at Crédit Agricole Création, a venture capital fund based in Lyon that invests between €200k and €1M in pre-seed, seed, and Series A rounds, with a focus on startups in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region. He previously worked as a Product Data Scientist at Madkudu, a Product Manager at 360Learning, and a Senior Associate at the venture capital fund Breega.

Inna Thalmann is co-founder and chief operating officer of Mable, a precision medicine company applying genomic sequencing to clinical decision-making. She holds a PhD in Econometrics with a health economics focus from the University of Oxford and completed postdoctoral research on phenotype algorithms for clinical trial design.

Laurent Grimaldi is the President of Telsam and Senior Partner at AgilaGrowth. With over 30 years in telecommunications, IT, innovation, and private equity, he founded Tiscali Network and Konnect Africa and previously led venture funds at Axa Private Equity (now Ardian). He is founder and CEO of C-Consulting, a TMT consulting firm serving private equity funds with business assessment, due diligence, and digital transformation services, with specialized expertise in telecom infrastructure including fiber, towers, data centers, and submarine cables.