Frequently Asked Questions

Who is Axeleo Capital ? What is your positioning ?

Axeleo Capital is an entrepreneur-led early-stage VC platform, founded by Eric Burdier and Mathieu Viallard, with a focus on two core pillars:
- Digital: mainly backing B2B software startups in Enterprise SaaS, AI, Cybersecurity, and Fintech through our funds AXC1 and AXC2.
- Greentech: supporting early industrial startups driving the ecological transition, via our dedicated Greentech fund launched in 2023.

We combine capital, operational support, and deep sector expertise, with a hands-on, founder-first approach. Based in France, we invest across Europe and support startups with a dual presence in Europe and the US.

Which stage do you invest at? What’s the typical investment ticket size that you first put?

We usually invest in early-stage companies with ticket ranges from a few hundreds €k to €1.5m on our B2B tech & Urbantech funds on pre-seed & seed rounds and from €5m to €10m on our Greentech Industry funds on seed & series A rounds.

For us Seed is not a hobby or among a broader early-stage strategy, it’s our speciality from day one.We keep ⅔ of our funds to follow-on on the best portfolio startups on series A/B

What’s the difference between Axeleo and Axeleo Capital?

Axeleo Capital is a fully independent, employee-owned European VC firm.

Founded in 2017 by Eric Burdier and Mathieu Viallard, alongside a network of seasoned tech entrepreneurs, Axeleo Capital was built on the foundations of Axeleo, a B2B startup accelerator launched in 2013 in Lyon (acquired by Cygo Entrepreneurs, cybersecurity venture builder).

This accelerator shaped the entrepreneurial DNA of our platform — providing us with a strong ecosystem of founders, a proven acceleration framework, and deep experience in hands-on startup support.

Today, we combine that operational mindset with capital to support early-stage B2B software and Greentech founders across Europe, from first funding to growth.

You talk about a large community of tech entrepreneurs. Who are they ?

Axeleo Capital was born from a carve-out of an accelerator backed by tech entrepreneurs like Christophe Dumoulin (chairman of Axeleo and co-founder of Business & Decision acquired by Orange Group), Laurent Fiard (co-founder & CEO of Visiativ Group), Thierry Rouquet (Arkoon acquired by Cassidian, Sentryo acquired by Cisco), Romain Niccoli (co-founder of Criteo, co-CEO at Pigment), Eric Mahé (Cloudskiff acquired by Snyck, RunMyProcess acquired Fujitsu) & many more. Now, +100 entrepreneurs & C-level are involved in our funds and our networks and mostly based in Europe and in the US.

Some of their actual and previous companies : Microsoft, Google, Adobe, Cisco, Dassault Systèmes, Ledger, Blablacar, Collibra, Salesforce, Snowflake, Alibaba, Talend, Workday, Tidemark, Mano Mano, Lexsi, Tenable, Avnet, Cap Gemini, Younited Credit, Eventbrite, Datadog, Snyk, Sopra,  Oracle, etc.

Concerning our Greentech Industry experts, please ask.

How do you support the companies once you have invested?

Our roots are in VC & Startup Acceleration. Born and raised in the tech ecosystem, we have developed our own acceleration framework to take early-stage startups to the next level. Our teams help founders turn their organizations into Serie A-ready startups by helping them to hire key talents and reshaping their value propositions and go-to-markets.

Apart from sitting at the board of the company to help it take relevant strategic decisions, we help on different pillars by using our experience, our own networks and the ones from our investors:
- business development
- go-to-market and product marketing
- recruiting
- finance structuration

Do you lead the rounds? Do you co-invest?

We aim to lead the rounds where we have other co-investors most of the time (business angels or other funds). To a lesser extent, we can also invest as a follower even though that’s not the goal nor our main strategy.

Due to our large networks of entrepreneurs, business angels & seed investors, we could help founders to invite some value-added investors.

Do you do follow-ons (series A / B & later) ?

Yes ! In our funds, we always have ⅔ of each funds AUM % of dry powder for the best performers.

Do you invest in equity or also in debt instruments?

We are quite open to the financial instruments used to finance the companies even though equity is the privileged one. Apart from equity, we are also able to use convertible notes, BSA AIR, SAFE, etc.

Where do you invest geographically speaking?

We invest in Europe and we are able to invest also outside of Europe to a lesser extent.

Who are your investors?

We count +160 LPs with a large number of seasoned entrepreneurs and c-level executives.

We have also built strong relationships with French institutions, banks, European corporates and top Family offices involved in the VC scene.

What’s the age of the funds? 

Our funds are funds of 10-years age divided into 5 years of investment period and 5 years of disinvestment period.

Do you help to make business introductions ?

Yes.

Do you help to hire talents ?

Yes.

Do you help to make VC introductions for future Series A / B ?

Yes.

Do you […] ?

(Again) Yes. And if you need any testimony, feel free to take a look right  here  and ask our portfolio companies!