Our Team

Luc-Emmanuel Barreau biography

Luc-Emmanuel is Partner at Red River West. He currently represents RRW on the board of HyPrSpace, Veesion, Allo-Media and iObeya.

With an engineering background and 15 years of experience in investments and finance, Luc-Emmanuel brings to our company portfolio a versatile and hands-on expertise. His scope spans key cross-border subjects such as finance, legal and tax as well as overall value creation for their growth phase.

Prior to RRW, as Investment Director and CFO of Aloe Private Equity, Luc-Emmanuel spearheaded the launch, refinancing and exit of a 60M€+ investment vehicle in infrastructure, was instrumental in the launch of a new business in Trusts, and has been monitoring several portfolio companies. He worked prior Aloe and his Berkeley-Haas MBA for 7 years for PwC as an Auditor and then in the Transaction Services department, where he performed numerous due diligence for Private Equity and Corporate clients.

Luc-Emmanuel graduated from Arts & Métiers Paristech in Mechanical Engineering in 2003 summa cum laude, holds an MBA from Berkeley-Haas, a research master in Mechanics and materials, a master’s in mathematics and a diploma of higher accounting and financial studies.

Antoine Boulin biography

Antoine is a Founding Partner at Red River West. He currently represents RRW on the board of Ada, Worldia, Le Collectionist, Sans Strings Studio and iObeya

Antoine brings over 20 years of leadership in the digital industry, with cross-border P&L responsibilities in Fortune 500s and start-ups alike.

Antoine loves to work with RRW’s portfolio companies on their US market entry as he acutely understands the challenges and opportunities therein. In 2007 he launched the US branch of Bestofmedia and after three years that proved as complex as instructive, the US contributed over 50% of Bestofmedia’s revenue. Alongside Alfred Vericel (CEO), he merged Bestofmedia with a US company (Techmedia Network) to form Purch, the new leader in technology news, which overtook Cnet (sold for $1.8B to CBS) with over 100 million readers a month.

Before joining RRW, Antoine Boulin was leading Purch Corporate Development. During his tenure, he completed three acquisitions as well as strategic partnerships which drove over $50M in revenue. Earlier, as the President of Purch’s media division, he was managing a team of 200 across five countries.

Antoine holds an MBA from ESSEC Business School in Paris.

Matthieu Bucaille biography

Matthieu is Strategic Partner at Red River West.

Matthieu is global CFO at BrandTech Group and honorary chairman and board member of Lazard International. Lazard is one of the world’s leading financial services institutions specialized in financial advisory, mergers and acquisitions and asset management.

Before that, Matthieu was Chief Financial Officer of Lazard Ltd. in New York from 2010 to 2017. Prior to this, he was based in France, acting as Vice Chairman Investment Banking Europe. He has been involved in the management of Lazard since becoming a partner in 1998 and in advising Lazard’s Financial Advisory clients in a broad array of industries, with a particular emphasis on cross-border transactions.

Matthieu earned his undergraduate degree at French business school Essec in 1982 and his MBA from the Wharton School in 1987.

Alessandro Ciffo biography

Alessandro is a Lead Data Engineer at Red River West. He brings a solid background in data science and machine learning, with years of experience building data-driven products across various industries.

Before joining Red River West, Alessandro worked as a data scientist at Amazon, where he built large-scale anomaly detection systems, and at Generali, where he developed machine learning models to forecast property prices and support investment decisions. He was also part of the early team at Midpage.ai, a legal tech startup, where he built AI-powered tools for lawyers using LLMs.

In 2023, he co-founded Casify.it, a SaaS platform that helped real estate investors identify and evaluate deals 10x faster using machine learning. At Casify, he led product development and machine learning engineering, while also managing go-to-market efforts.

Alessandro holds a Master’s degree in Data Science from Bocconi University.

Maxime Corbani biography

Max is a Partner at >commit, Red River West's early-stage fund backing commercial open-source, developer-tools and infrastructure companies across Europe and the US. A founding member of the team, he focuses on DevTools, Infrastructure and AI, and still writes code in TypeScript and Rust.

An engineer and repeat founder, Max started Symolia and then founded Dashblock, a browser agent he took through Y Combinator (S19), before moving into venture capital to back open-source and infrastructure founders. That operator's perspective shapes how he supports >commit's companies from their very first commit.

Max holds a civil engineering degree from École Centrale Paris and has lived and worked across Brazil, the United States, Hungary and France. He speaks French, English and Portuguese.

Bettina Denis biography

Bettina Denis is Red River West's Chief Financial and Sustainable Officer, based in Paris.

She brings over fifteen years of experience in finance, having worked as a director in Deloitte’s Transaction Services department and as CFO of a late-stage fund.

In her previous role, she also defined and implemented the ESG and sustainable investment strategy, adding a strong sustainability focus to her financial expertise.

Estelle Godard biography

Estelle is a Principal at Red River West, where she focuses on AI, deeptech and space investments across Europe, bringing close to eight years of combined experience in venture capital and Europe's space and deeptech ecosystem.

Estelle started her career at the European Space Agency (ESA), in industry and procurement, where she helped shape Europe's space startup landscape. She then moved into venture capital, where she has led or co-led more than ten investments across deeptech and space and served as a board director or observer. Her venture career began at Promus Ventures, a leading US VC investing across frontier technologies, which led the Seed round of The Exploration Company, where Estelle has served as a board observer. Most recently, she was a Vice President at OTB Ventures, where she opened the firm's Luxembourg office and led DeepTech investments.

Estelle holds French and Luxembourgish citizenship. She graduated with a Master's in Economics and Public Policy from Sciences Po Paris and a dual Bachelor's in Social Sciences and Natural Sciences from Sciences Po Paris and the University of British Columbia (UBC).

Joseph Houssais biography

Joseph is a Principal at Red River West and has been in the startup and VC world for 5 years. He currently represents RRW on the board of Okeiro.

Before joining RRW in 2019, he was an analyst at Korelya Capital, a cross-border VC fund with an Asian angle. He previously held operational and data analytics roles venture-backed startups in London and Paris.

Joseph graduated from ESCP Business school with a Corporate Finance Masters. He has both a British and French nationality.

Olivier Huez biography

Olivier is a Partner at Red River West, and a Partner at >commit, Red River West early stage fund investing in Commercial Open Source. He currently represents Red River West on the board of Otera, Resilience and Robovision

Olivier started his career inventing and developing innovative mobile services based on Location technologies and Natural Language Processing at Orange Labs.

He went on to be a B2B product manager in the US owning a $400m P&L and subsequently joined the Merger and Acquisition team at Orange in London where he was involved in many Telecom and Digital media acquisitions. He was then CFO and COO of two British Startups in the fields of Digital payment and Digital advertising.

In 2014, Olivier co-founded C4 Ventures alongside Pascal Cagni (former head of Apple Europe) and established one of the most recognized European Venture Capital investor in their chosen sectors. C4 Ventures invests both in early-stage companies in Europe and late-stage American ones, supporting their European expansion and operations. In particular C4 Ventures invested in 6 companies which went on to become unicorns (valuation greater than $1Bn), 4 of which Olivier oversaw personally.

Olivier holds French and British citizenship, he graduated from Ecole Polytechnique and Telecom Paris-Tech. He is also a British Chartered Accountant (CIMA).

Camille Lacourt Munier biography

Camille is a Venture Partner at Red River West, based in Paris. She brings 15 years in investment, mostly within a global, active ownership Private Equity firm focusing on the consumer segment.

Camille began her career in 2005 at Société Générale in Project Finance, working on public-private partnerships and asset structured finance transactions.

In 2007, she joined L Capital - now L Catterton - where she contributed to several growth mid-cap deals with best-in-class performance, fueled by a specialized, cross-border and hands-on approach of the investor role. There, Camille developed significant international exposure, built expertise in numerous consumer segments, growing sub-segments & trends and leveraged sector expertise and global insights to bring value-added support to portfolio companies.

In 2017, Camille spent one year in California where she integrated a startup incubator. She worked on an eco-sustainable agrotechnology project addressing the alternative protein market. From there, she accelerated her acculturation to the tech and venture ecosystem and interest for impact projects.

Camille holds an MBA from ESSEC Business School, where she followed the Asian Track; and a Bachelor degree in Philosophy from Paris X Nanterre, with honors. Camille is a Board Director at Hôpital Léon Bérard, a non-profit innovative private health center in the South of France.

Chloé Merlet biography

Chloe is an Investor at Red River West.

Before joining Red River West in 2023, Chloe led a startup project at Berkeley University developing a digital clinic for women's health. Chloe had previously discovered the world of startups and investments as a PE Analyst at Bridgepoint in Paris and a VC Analyst in Barcelona at Impact Partners.

Chloe graduated from HEC Paris Grande Ecole in 2023, after specializing in entrepreneurship thanks to the X-HEC Entrepreneurs Master.

Abel Samot biography

Abel is Partner at >commit, Red River West dedicated pre-seed and seed fund backing the next generation of category-defining Open Source AI and Infrastructure companies.

Since his arrival in early 2020, he has built, with his team, a VC tech platform recognized as one of the best in the world helping Red River West members every day to find, and anayze the best investment opportunities.

Before joining RRW in 2019, he worked as an AI consultant at Devoteam where he did a mission for the insurance company Generali. He also created multiple projects and companies such as the Podcast called « Nos Mentors » where he interviews Entrepreneurs and Investors, or the SaaS company Synkr.

Abel is an Engineer who holds a Master's in Business Intelligence from ISEP and a Master's In Management from ESSEC Business School.

Thomas Saudemont biography

Thomas is a Data Engineer focused on RiverOS, Red River West's technology platform.

Previously with the French Ministry of the Armed Forces’ Cyber Defense Command (COMCYBER), he delivered production data pipelines and tools supporting cyber operations, and led a research project on detecting malware beaconing using machine learning and high-fidelity synthetic network traffic. An ever-curious builder, Thomas has contributed to open-source blockchain initiatives and developed numerous personal projects. He holds an engineering degree in software cybersecurity, with study stints of over two years in Canada and Estonia.

Bertrand Schmitt biography

Bertrand is Entrepreneur in Residence at Red River West and brings 20+ years as Tech Entrepreneur, Exec, Senior Adviser to VC funds & Business Angel.

Co-Founder at App Annie, he led the business as CEO from 2010-2018, and as Chairman from 2010-2020, resulting in $100M+ ARR, 400 employees across US, Asia and Europe, as well as $150M+ raised from IDG Capital, e-Ventures, Greycroft, Sequoia, IVP, Greenspring among others. App Annie rebranded to Data.ai and was acquired by Sensor Tower in March 2024. Bertrand started the business in China in 2010 before moving the HQ to San Francisco in 2014.

Prior to App Annie, he was VP Mobile at Gomez (Boston/Beijing) sold for $295M to Compuware (now Dynatrace) while in dual IPO track. Earlier he was also COO at Zandan (Paris) sold to Keynote Systems. Bertrand started his career as co-founder and CEO/CTO of the French startup Arkadia Netsystems.

Bertrand lived in SF, Beijing, Shanghai, Philadelphia, Paris and now Seattle. He holds an MBA from Wharton, and an MSc from ISEP in France.

Yves Sisteron biography

Yves Sisteron is Strategic Partner at Red River West.

Yves is founding Partner of Upfront Ventures, a leading venture capital firm based in Los Angeles, California. With over 30 years of experience in venture investing, Yves has played a crucial role in shaping the Southern California startup ecosystem.

His investment career began at Carrefour, identifying and investing in nascent distribution companies that have since become global successes delivering exceptional returns. Since founding Upfront in 1996, Yves has successfully raised numerous funds worth billions and has guided investments that have led to exceptional results. His strategic decisions across the SaaS, cloud software, and consumer internet sectors have notably increased the value of the firms he invested in.

Yves holds a law degree from New York University

Gonzalo Torres biography

Gonzalo is a Venture Partner at Red River West, based in Madrid.

He brings more than 15 years of experience in entrepreneurship and digital consulting, along with an extensive network of European tech startups, connecting Red River West with promising sourcing opportunities in southern Europe.

After founding his own startup Empel, a consulting firm specialized in digital strategy, he became Director of Opinno Europe, an innovation-driven consulting firm, publisher in Spain for the MIT Technology Review and the Harvard Business Review. This preceded his time as Country Manager for the Spanish market at the French scale-up Malt, the leading freelance consulting marketplace in Europe.

Until recently, Gonzalo was at the Executive Committee of Talent Garden, Europe’s leading digital education provider and coworking network for innovators and tech ecosystems, leading the markets of Spain and France.

Gonzalo is currently Country Director for Spain at Shopify, the worldwide leader e-commerce platform.

Gonzalo is a Computer Science Engineer, and holds a Master’s Degree from Université Paris Dauphine and Université Pierre et Marie Curie. In addition to his Spanish mother tongue, he speaks fluently English and French.

Alfred Véricel biography

Alfred is a Founding Partner at Red River West. He currently represents RRW on the board of The Exploration Company, Jiko and Speach.

Alfred is passionate about working with talented founders and to share his experience as a serial entrepreneur with a track record of scaling French startups into global leaders via entry into the US market. Prior to RRW, Alfred had 25 years of success as a technology entrepreneur; building three groups in France and the US with a cumulated value over $250M. During this time, he built a global category leader reaching over €100M of recurring revenue, managed fast organic growth and successfully acquired and sold over 12 companies.

Alfred has served as an advisor for several public companies, including Kering and Airbus. He is the Co-President of La French Tech in Los Angeles, bringing together startups, investors, policy makers and community builders.

Dan Vogel biography

Dan is Red River West ESG Operating Partner.

He has a triple competency in ESG, entrepreneurship and finance.

Dan is the co-founder of Enablon, the first Global SaaS provider in ESG Software powering more than 1000 global companies, with more than 50% of sales in North America and hundreds of employees on 3 continents. Dan was Enablon’s CEO and chairman from 2000 until its acquisition in 2016. Before co-founding Enablon, he worked in IT in a global investment bank.

A serial entrepreneur, he is now a business angel in multiple companies in Europe and North America, as well as investor, advisor and board member in scale-ups, incubators and funds supporting ESG.

Dan holds a master’s from emlyon.

Maru Winnacker biography

Maru brings over 17 years of experience in entrepreneurship and fundraising and an extensive network of European late-stage tech entrepreneurs, connecting Red River West with promising sourcing opportunities in northern Europe.

Maru founded her first company, Germany’s first luxury tea brand, when she was 26 and scaled in over 80 retail partners in the DACH region. She is now a Managing Partner of Urania Ventures, a French-German investment firm committed to backing scientific breakthrough technology founders for the long term.

Before that, she founded Super Group, an advisory firm backing global leaders with a purpose-driven tech focus, creating value through growth capital access and strategic partnerships, and preparing founders for a potential IPO. She serves as Chairwoman on the board of Chemovator (the BASF Venture Builder), the foundation committee board of the BAYER Foundation, and the selection board of The Karman Project. In addition, she actively supports and mentors young, diverse talent and supports Space Founders. Maru studied business administration (MBA) at European Business School (EBS) Oestrich-Winkel, San Diego State University (CA, USA), and Universidad Argentina de la Empresa (BA, Argentina).