Pauline Roux

Who they are

Pauline Roux is a Partner at Elaia Partners — co-president of France Invest's Venture & Growth commission and, possibly, the founder of Paulus Wine Co., a Chenin blanc venture in South Africa.

Person

Pauline Roux built her career in public markets before crossing into venture. She trained at EM Lyon Business School (MSc in Management), with an exchange at Corvinus University of Budapest, then moved through equity research and corporate finance roles at Crédit Agricole Cheuvreux, Bryan Garnier & Co, and Genesta Finance — covering the tech sector across all three. That grounding in how capital markets price technology companies is a specific edge in early-stage investing: she can read a cap table and a comps sheet with equal fluency. She joined Elaia Partners in 2019, when the firm was already an established early-stage deep tech and B2B VC in France. The through-line is public-markets rigour applied to private, pre-revenue bets. Beyond the day job, she sits on the Invest Europe Venture Council, is co-president of France Invest's Venture & Growth commission (and teaches its classes), and spoke at both ALFI conferences in 2025. She writes and posts on AI, SaaS, and deep tech investing. Possibly — she also founded Paulus Wine Co., a South Africa-based Chenin blanc venture, around 2018.

Network

No direct relationship edges are available from the claims. Pauline's institutional affiliations — Invest Europe's Venture Council and France Invest's Venture & Growth commission — put her in regular contact with GPs and LPs across the European VC ecosystem. She also mentors several tech acceleration programs in Paris, giving her visibility into the founder community.

How they likely show up

Equity research background at three firms (Crédit Agricole Cheuvreux, Bryan Garnier, Genesta Finance) → likely brings structured, data-anchored analysis to investment decisions rather than pattern-matching alone.
Co-president of France Invest's Venture & Growth commission and teaches its classes → comfortable in governance and institution-building roles, not just deal roles.
Joined Elaia in 2019 and has stayed — possibly a long-tenure arc → likely thinks in fund cycles (7-10 years), not quarter-by-quarter.
Speaks at pan-European forums (ALFI 2025, South Summit 2020, Invest Europe) → at ease representing a firm's thesis publicly and in multilingual / multi-jurisdiction rooms.
Mentors tech acceleration programs in Paris → invests time upstream of dealflow, values founder relationships before the term sheet.

Conversation tips

→ Reference her France Invest role specifically — she's co-president of the Venture & Growth commission and teaches there, so she has strong views on European VC policy and market structure.
→ Her equity research background means she'll engage with quantitative arguments; don't shy away from numbers, but be precise — she'll notice if you're estimating loosely.
→ She covers deep tech and B2B SaaS at Elaia — anchor any conversation about startups to those verticals rather than consumer or crypto.
→ She's been on conference panels with founders and investors across Europe; name-dropping a shared institutional connection (Invest Europe, ALFI) is more useful than a generic compliment about Elaia.
→ Possibly — ask about the wine venture only if the conversation is already personal; it's a soft claim and may not be something she leads with professionally.

Toolbox

Openers

Open on her ALFI 2025 appearances — she spoke at both the Private Assets Conference and the European Risk Management Conference this year, which signals she's engaging with LP-side conversations about risk in private markets, not just founder-side dealflow.
Reference her France Invest co-presidency: she doesn't just sit on the commission, she teaches the classes — ask what gaps in practitioner knowledge she's trying to close with that curriculum.
Her path from equity research at Bryan Garnier and Crédit Agricole Cheuvreux into early-stage VC is unusual — most VCs come from operating or consulting; her public-markets lens on pre-revenue companies is a concrete differentiator worth surfacing early.

Discovery questions

You came through equity research covering tech before moving to early-stage VC — how does a public-markets valuation framework actually change (or not) when you're pricing a seed-stage deep tech company with no revenue?
As co-president of France Invest's Venture & Growth commission, what's the one structural gap in the European VC market you keep coming back to in those sessions?
Elaia focuses on deep tech and B2B — where do you draw the line between a company that's genuinely deep tech and one that's using the label to justify a longer path to commercialisation?

Avoid

Don't treat her as a generalist European VC — she has a specific public-markets analytical background and a defined focus on deep tech and B2B; leading with consumer, fintech, or broad 'AI is eating the world' framings will feel unresearched.

Make it yours