Backing exceptional humans in the era of abundant intelligence

Built for founders in the AI Era

AI only

We exclusively invest in AI-natives company. By dedicating all of our time to AI, we build deeper conviction, stronger network, and deliver greater value to founders.

Day-1 Partners

We write €300k–€1m checks at pre-seed and seed, often before the first line of code or first hire.

Built by founders

We’ve founded companies ourselves and know the journey isn't easy. We make decisions quickly and support founders through the ups and downs, from key hires to fundraising and strategic positioning.

Cleo Trailblazers-led support

Our Cleo Trailblazers Club brings together world-class AI founders and operators who hold carried interest in our fund. They coach portfolio founders across go-to-market, product, research, and org building.

Backed by AI entrepreneurs

We are backed by 40+ AI entrepreneurs who have built companies from 0 to 1 across multiple industries. They act as trusted allies to founders as they scale.

Sixte de Vauplane
Co-founder, Animaj
Man with dark hair wearing a light gray t-shirt against a transparent background.
Hamza Iraqui & Abdessamad Benzakour
Co-founders, Revibe
Baptiste Le Bihan
Co-founder, Linc
Smiling man with short hair wearing a black collared shirt over a white t-shirt.
Nicolas Bustamente
Co-founder, Fintool
Smiling man with curly brown hair wearing a brown jacket and white shirt, arms crossed.
Reiner Pope & Mike Gunter
Co-founders, MatX
Two men smiling, one wearing a black hoodie with MATX logo and the other wearing a black shirt with a red logo.
Dorian Ciavarella
Co-founder, Zeliq

Portfolio

Category
Sources
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name
description
category
Revibe
Website

Leading marketplace for refurbished electronics in the MENA region

Leading marketplace for refurbished electronics in the MENA region

Other
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Tomorro
Website

AI contract management platform

AI contract management platform

Application
,
Zeliq
Website

AI platform that helps sales team optimize outreach

AI platform that helps sales team optimize outreach

Application
,

Team

We support founders on early team building, customer introductions, fundraising, and market intelligence ; beyond that, we want our portfolio founders to hear advices from the bests. 

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So we created the Cleo Trailblazers Club, a curated group of world-class AI founders and operators embedded in our investment model. Trailblazers support founders across go-to-market, product, research and organization building. 

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Each member commits dedicated time to work hands-on with founders and participates in the upside through carried interest.

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Maxime is co-founder and General Partner of Cleo. Before that, he was a Principal at Balderton, leading its efforts in France and investing in companies like GitGuardian, Kili Technology, Sweep, Photoroom, and Numeral. Earlier in his career, he built convai, a conversational AI startup where he served as CTO. Maxime holds an MSc in Data Science from Centrale Paris.

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>> Linkedin

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Maxime Le Dantec
Co-founder and Partner
Investing

Antoine is co-founder and General Partner of Cleo. He was most recently Partner at Breega, leading pre-seed and seed investments across Western Europe. Earlier in his career, he served as COO of Green-Acres, a real estate platform he helped scale to €6m ARR and co-founded a fintech platform, Bizzdata. Antoine holds an MSc in Computer Science from Centrale Nantes and MSc in BA from HEC Paris.

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>> Linkedin

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Antoine Veret
Co-founder and Partner
Investing

Olivier is co-founder and former CEO of Aircall, the AI-powered VoIP platform he scaled to $200M ARR. He led Aircall’s expansion from France to the US, relocating there to scale the company into a 1,000-person organization. He brings deep expertise in US expansion, GTM, and organization scaling.

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>> Linkedin

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Olivier Pailhes
Trailblazer
Cleo Trailblazers

Lucie was CPO and employee #13 at Contentsquare, where she helped build the company from the ground up into a $5.6B global SaaS leader. She led a 100+ person product organization and oversaw 8 integrations. She coaches founders on product strategy, SaaS platformization, AI transformation and integration post external acquisitions.

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>> Linkedin

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Lucie Buisson
Trailblazer
Cleo Trailblazers

Thomas is Senior Staff Researcher at Meta Superintelligence Lab. He led Llama 2 and 3 development (1+B downloads), and is currently working on Meta's next agentic model. He brings deep expertise in LLM architecture, RL, agents, and coaches our founders on research team building, harness engineering and tech architecture.

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>> Linkedin

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Thomas Scialom
Trailblazer
Cleo Trailblazers
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Values

1

Lead with purpose. Act with integrity.

Most people optimize for optics. We believe trust compounds and play long-term games with long-term people.

2

Move fast. Learn faster.

Speed isn’t chaos, it’s clarity. We strip away unnecessary work so founders can maximize their surface area for breakout outcomes.

3

Make excellence the default

Good is where things die. Excellence is the only option. Because every detail matters and every detail stacks.

4

Assume it will work. Chase the upside.

Venture is asymmetric. We spend our time on the part that matters and build towards outsized returns.