Mathieu de La Rochefoucauld built his career across M&A, private equity, and digital deal-making at firms like SG Hambros and Amundi before helping launch Supernova Invest and Orange Ventures, giving him a background rooted in institutional finance and venture-building rather than typical startup operating experience. At Orange Ventures, he describes the firm's value less in terms of capital and more in terms of helping startups and Orange's business units understand each other, a perspective shaped by his long-standing board role at Ekinops since 2011 and his early involvement in investments like Robocath and Afyren.
About their Fund
Orange Ventures operates as a separate legal entity from its telecom parent, Orange, which creates a clear boundary around confidentiality and conflicts of interest while still keeping Orange's business synergies available on a flexible, optional basis; it also invests in startups before those synergies are proven, a bet that led 90% of its 2021–2022 startup group to end up working with Orange Group, with two staff members whose job is specifically to help portfolio companies work with the larger company. In Africa and the Middle East, the fund draws on Orange's on-the-ground presence across roughly 17-18 countries—including its distribution networks, cell towers, and mobile money systems—to find startups that fit within Orange's role as a multi-service operator spanning mobile money, energy, and logistics, and it runs its investments differently by region and goal, with separate tracks for European software startups, Middle East/Africa growth-stage startups, and a dedicated €30 million fund for environmental and social impact startups.
















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