Earlybird welcomes Salomon Aiach as new principal to embark into France
A perspective on FrenchTech, Startup/VC ecosystems & teams
Please join us in welcoming Salomon Aiach to Earlybird. Salomon will be leading the expansion of Earlybird into France.
Salomon was born in the US, grew up in France, and studied in Boston. He brings an international background to Earlybird along with a strong track record of founder mentorship, startup support and investments.
Prior to joining Earlybird, Salomon was at Facebook in France and Goldman Sachs in NYC.
Congrats on joining the Earlybird Digital West investment team as principal!
We have a few questions for our community to get to know you better:
1) What intrigues you most about the French Tech ecosystem?
SA: The French Tech is, in my opinion, the hottest market at the moment in Europe. Not only in terms of funding (we have more than doubled the VC funding from 2020 to 2021 going from €5.4Md euros to €11.7Md) but also in terms of talents & founding teams.
Founders are extremely talented (we have some of the best engineers in the world), but also they have limitless ambitions and are not looking to build $50M or $100M companies just for the French market anymore; they are looking to build the next $1Bn company. We have 26 unicorns now when our goal was to have 25 of them by 2025.
The entire country is now cheering for the VC / Startup ecosystem to continue on this path and it is a real pleasure to watch.
2) How do you see Europe’s VC-startup ecosystem evolving for now?
SA: On the funding side, France has become an attractive ecosystem for foreign investors and I believe that will remain so for some time, especially when it comes to growth funding. But I do believe that we will start seeing a lot more EU growth funds emerge in the next few years to fuel those startups raising late stage funding.
Obviously, liquidity is one of the main topics for VC funds & their LPs. I would not be surprised if we start seeing a wave of M&A deals and IPOs happen in the near future as well.
On the startup / entrepreneur side, we will also start seeing a wave of repeat founders that have learned from their mistakes and a wave of top talents from some of the most prestigious companies in Europe leaving their jobs to become entrepreneurs. For those reasons, early stage investors will have to get into deals way earlier (sometimes at pre-product & pre-traction stages) and should be ready to get in at higher valuations than 2 or 3 years ago.
“The power has shifted from the investors to the founders in the last year or two and I believe it will remain that way for some time.”
3) What‘s the most pressing issue for founders at the moment?
SA: Before speaking about the most pressing issue, I want to acknowledge the bravery of all the founders out there “fighting the fight” day after day, to build those companies from scratch. They have changed our daily lives for the better with some of the most sophisticated ideas and technologies.
The most pressing issue for founders today is to choose the right partner (investor) for their startup journey. We have never seen so much available capital for founders, especially early stage founders. But we should not forget that an early stage investor is someone they will be working with for 5–10 years on a regular basis. So founders need to make sure they choose someone they feel comfortable with and they get along with.
4) What influenced your choice to join Earlybird?
SA: Two things influenced my decision to join the team:
The first one was my strong conviction that we need to infuse more “early-stage foreign money” into the French Tech ecosystem. Founders are thinking of “Europe” as early as seed / Series A stages nowadays, and having a leading foreign VC fund as an investor helps tremendously when thinking about EU expansion. With Brexit, Germany is now the first EU market where French founders will expand. Earlybird has the network and the playbook to help nearly anyone succeed here.
The second and most important is the team. When you take on a new adventure in a career, you join people before anything else. I spent a lot of time with the entire team in Munich and Berlin. I was amazed by their brilliant thinking and ambitions to build a global franchise but also their kindness and humility.
I couldn’t be happier to join such a team of incredible talents.
Thanks for your perspective here Salomon, and welcome aboard! 🙌🏽
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