Meet Mathilde, Investment Manager — Building Bridges in the Startup World.
Meet Mathilde Lyet who has joined the Investment Team as Investment Manager at Dreamcraft. Mathilde is a true force in the startup world, combining her passion, curiosity, and ability to build bridges between founders and investors. She brings her experience of investing from Seed to Growth stage across 3 continents, and her dedication to supporting founders to scale and make a positive impact.
Mathilde grew up in the vibrant city of Paris, alongside her two brothers. From a young age, she was known as the nerdy kid who loved reading and spending hours on her parents’ first laptop, delving into the depths of Wikipedia to learn about the most random topics.
Driven by a genuine curiosity for science and a desire to make her family proud, Mathilde decided to study engineering. However, it didn’t take long for her to realize that her place was not in a lab or as a tech expert focusing on a single segment. Instead, she found joy in working on multiple projects in parallel, gaining a high-level view and understanding the strategic and business implications of each.
During her studies, Mathilde had the opportunity to immerse herself in a completely different culture when she spent time studying in Seoul, South Korea. This experience broadened her horizons, expanded her social circle, and taught her the value of adapting to different backgrounds and perspectives.
“I was lucky to discover the world of startups at university through clubs & internships, and was fascinated by founders building their own business from the ground.”
This fascination led her to work on the advisory side, supporting founders through fundraising and M&A operations.
While working in a tech M&A boutique, Mathilde witnessed the challenges faced by even the most talented founders in securing offers from venture capital funds. This experience made her empathetic to the founders’ fundraising journey and fueled her desire to move to the investor side to support founders in the long term.
Mathilde’s journey in venture capital led her to join Bpifrance Growth VC fund, where she had the opportunity to participate in impactful investments, like with Doctolib, a leading digital healthcare platform.
She gained a comprehensive understanding of mature business analysis and valuation during her time at a Private Equity fund, which offered her a different perspective from the early-stage startup world. Here it was more focus on the bottom line, which has become back in fashion in the VC world recently!
Taking a leap of faith, Mathilde joined Maersk Growth in Copenhagen.
“I then had the opportunity to join a relatively newly launched CVC in Copenhagen: Maersk Growth. This was quite a bet both on the professional side, and on the personal side, since I was moving by myself to a completely new country right at the beginning of the covid pandemic! Looking back, both at the amazing team & portfolio that we built in a couple of years, and all the learnings that resulted, not to forget all the great people I got to meet, I would do it again in a heartbeat.”
At Maersk Growth, she participated in a dozen transactions, ranging from Seed to Series B investments in the Supply Chain and Climate tech space, across Europe, the US and Australia.
Beyond the office, you will find Mathilde embracing the outdoors, going for runs or road biking, even in the midst of the Nordic winter. Food holds a special place in her heart, and she loves discovering new places to eat out with friends, bonding over life struggles accompanied by a good bottle of wine. Whether it is Copenhagen or Paris, Mathilde is always happy to share recommendations for favorite culinary spots.
Joining Dreamcraft, Mathilde takes on the role of leading sourcing efforts in Sweden and Finland while expanding the geographical footprint to the UK and her home country, France. She is passionate about connecting with founders who are striving to solve real-world problems at scale, with a particular interest in solutions that contribute to addressing the urgent climate crisis. However, Mathilde’s curiosity from her childhood, scrolling on her parents’ laptop still persists today as she is always ready to learn about any topic, ranging from the future of work to healthtech.
If you wish to get in touch with Mathilde, connect with her on LinkedIn.
Meet more of the Dreamcraft team here:
