Pauline Roux

Who they are

Pauline Roux is Managing Partner at Elaia — co-president of France Invest's Venture & Growth commission and the architect of Elaia's 2024 Lazard Elaia Capital platform.

Person

Pauline joined Elaia in 2019 and has since risen to Managing Partner at one of France's most active deep-tech VC firms. She came up through financial markets — equity research on the tech sector at Bryan, Garnier & Co and Crédit Agricole Cheuvreux, then corporate finance and investment banking at Genesta Finance — a grounding that gives her a public-markets lens uncommon among seed-stage investors. Her MSc in Management is from EM Lyon Business School, with an exchange at Corvinus University of Budapest. The through-line is moving closer to the source of value creation: from analysing listed tech companies, to backing them at the earliest stages. Beyond deal-making, she sits on the Venture Council at Invest Europe, co-presidents France Invest's Venture & Growth commission, and teaches classes there — a level of institutional involvement that signals she's building the French VC ecosystem, not just a portfolio. Possibly — her public writing on AI, SaaS, and deep tech via Elaia's platform and LinkedIn reflects a deliberate effort to shape how European founders think about institutional capital.

Company

Elaia's most recent milestone is the March 2026 close of its third DeepTech Seed fund (DTS3) at €134 million — double the size of its previous deep-tech seed vehicles — targeting founders from Europe's top research labs working on fusion, AI, and adjacent science-led bets. Just before that, in February 2026, Elaia reached a €120 million first close on its fifth Digital Venture Fund (DV5), with ambitions to reach €300 million, focused on European B2B technology startups from pre-Seed to Series B. The firm now manages approximately €850 million in assets under management across a portfolio of over 100 investments. The 2024 partnership with Lazard to create Lazard Elaia Capital extended Elaia's reach from seed all the way to public markets, adding a private equity platform layer to what had been a pure-play venture operation. Together these moves position Elaia as a full-stack backer of European tech — seed conviction married to late-stage and public-markets continuity.

Market

Elaia competes in the European deep-tech and B2B SaaS venture market, where it has backed breakout names including Criteo, Mirakl, Shift Technology, AQEMIA, and Alice & Bob. The firm is positioned as one of Europe's most active investors in science-led innovation, with particular exposure to computing, quantum, robotics, industrial technologies, life sciences, and digital health. Geopolitical pressures — supply-chain decoupling from China, semiconductor regulatory shifts, and trade-war volatility — are reshaping the strategic environment for Elaia's portfolio companies and creating both risk and opportunity for deep-tech investors who can help founders diversify and adapt.

Network

No direct edge data is available for Pauline's personal network. Her institutional roles — Venture Council at Invest Europe, co-president of France Invest's Venture & Growth commission, and mentoring across Paris tech acceleration programs — place her in regular contact with European VC peers, LPs, and founders at the policy and ecosystem level.

How they likely show up

  • Equity research background (Bryan, Garnier & Co; Crédit Agricole Cheuvreux) → likely stress-tests financial models and unit economics before conviction, not after.
  • Teaches classes at France Invest's Venture & Growth commission → comfortable synthesising complex investment frameworks into structured, teachable form; probably runs tight, agenda-driven meetings.
  • Sits on both the Invest Europe Venture Council and co-presidents France Invest → operates at a policy and ecosystem level alongside deal flow, suggesting long time horizons and institution-building instincts.
  • Joined Elaia in 2019 and reached Managing Partner — a multi-year tenure at one firm — → likely thinks in fund cycles (7–10 years), not in quarterly wins.
  • Possibly — content themes span AI, SaaS, Ad/MarTech, HR Tech, AgTech, and deep tech → generalist enough to hold a broad portfolio view, but the DTS3 close signals a sharpening focus on science-led deep tech.

Conversation tips

  • → Reference the DTS3 fund specifically — doubling the deep-tech seed vehicle to €134 million is a deliberate strategic bet, and she'll have views on why that moment was right.
  • → She teaches VC fundamentals at France Invest, so she'll engage well with structured questions about how she thinks, not just what she's done — ask for her framework, not just her portfolio.
  • → Her investment banking background means she respects rigor; come with numbers, not just narrative, if you're pitching or discussing a company.
  • → The Lazard Elaia Capital partnership is a natural conversation anchor — ask how thinking about the full seed-to-public arc changes how she evaluates early-stage bets.
  • → She mentors acceleration programs in Paris, so she's used to giving, not just receiving, perspective — frame conversations as exchanges, not pitches.

Toolbox

Openers

  • Open on DTS3 — Elaia just closed a €134 million deep-tech seed fund in March 2026, double its previous vehicle. Ask what changed in the European deep-tech supply of fundable companies to justify doubling down now.
  • Bring up Lazard Elaia Capital — the 2024 partnership to create a seed-to-public-markets platform is a structural bet on continuity of ownership. It's an unusual move for a firm historically known as a pure-play venture investor.
  • Reference her France Invest co-presidency — she teaches Venture & Growth classes there, which means she has a crystallised point of view on how European VC should operate. That's a strong opening for a substantive conversation about where the asset class is heading.

Discovery questions

  1. DTS3 doubled the size of Elaia's previous deep-tech seed vehicles — what does the pipeline of science-led founders from European labs look like today versus when you ran the earlier funds?
  2. The Lazard Elaia Capital platform connects seed to public markets in one structure — how does having that full-stack view change the way you underwrite a seed check today?
  3. You teach VC at France Invest and sit on the Invest Europe Venture Council — where do you see the biggest structural gap between what European founders need and what the European VC market currently provides?

Avoid

Don't treat her as a generalist tech investor — she has a deep financial-markets background and co-runs a fund with specific deep-tech thesis conviction, so vague enthusiasm about 'the AI wave' without sector specificity will land flat.

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Sources

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Generated by briefthecall.com from public web sources on June 5, 2026. Each claim is linked to its source above.

Automatically generated by AI from public sources. May be inaccurate or out of date. Remove or correct this profile →