NE

Nicolas Essayan

Founding Partner at Motier Ventures

Paris, Île-de-France

Overview 

Nicolas Essayan is a Founding Partner at Motier Ventures in Paris, with a background in investment banking and private equity. He has successfully invested in a range of companies across sectors like gaming/eSports, cybersecurity, and FinTech, including Swaive, Dust, and Karmine Corp. Essayan's career highlights include founding successful ventures like CodeReef and Yakti, as well as holding key roles at Apax Partners and Morgan Stanley. His investment portfolio showcases a track record of supporting innovative startups at various stages of growth.

Work Experience 

  • Founding Partner

    2021 - Current

    Family Office investing in Tech start-ups on behalf of the Galeries Lafayette Group owners. Up to €300k as Business Angel in Pre-Seeds and Seeds, in capacity to follow up to €3m on next rounds. Focus on Future of Commerce, FinTech, CreativeTech, Consumer & Gaming, Infra & Tooling and Future of Work, with Blockchains and AI as transversal expertises. ➡️ Built from scratch a professional investment platform. ➡️ Manage a deal flow of +300 monthly opportunities in Seed and Series A in France. ➡️ Participated in 112 rounds in 85 companies to date (and counting 🚀).

  • Co-Founder

    2019 - 2020

    Platform that enables fast prototyping and benchmarking of Machine Learning systems. ➡️ Incepted @StationF as part of Entrepreneur First program. ➡️ Contributed to the not-for-profit CKnowledge foundation.

  • Co-Founder

    2018 - 2020

    Messaging-as-a-service API that provides secured chat, voice, and video messaging for mobile and web apps. ➡️ Raised pre-seed from BAs. ➡️ Sold to the founder of cybersecurity company Synaktiv.

  • Director

    2010 - 2018

    Private equity investor focusing on Tech and Financial Services companies across Europe. Identification of new investment opportunities, deals execution, monitoring and assistance of portfolio companies notably in completing build-up acquisitions. ➡️ 12 deals closed in 8 countries. ➡️ >€500m equity put at work. >€600m debt raised. ➡️ 28% and 2.8x fully realized returns.

  • Associate

    2005 - 2009

    Investment banking professional advising corporates and PE funds in their M&A, LBO and capital markets operations. Generalist profile involved in the coverage of some key French accounts operating in various industries notably TMT and Building Materials. Participated in cross-border deals involving international and multi-cultural teams. ➡️ 9 closed transactions advised. ➡️ >€20Bn aggregated enterprise value.

Morgan Stanley Venture Partners is a private equity firm that invests in high-growth companies in the technology and healthcare industries.

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