Selected - The Sesamers Podcast

From private equity to building Europe's ARPA Loesekrug-Pietri moved through private equity, entrepreneurship, and government, including a stint as special advisor to the French Minister of Defense, before co-founding JEDI in 2017. About 20 people set up the organization, split roughly into thirds: industrialists, heads of large research bodies such as Germany's DLR and France's CNRS, and deep tec...

From corporate law to humanitarian innovation Cohen practiced corporate law in Tel Aviv, advising startups on founders' agreements, term sheets, and due diligence for venture capital firms and accelerators. She later went to business school and applied to the World Food Programme, expecting to stay a few months. Twelve years on, she has spent the last 10 of those years on WFP's innovation team. Th...

Mathematical Forecast Modeling and the Food Valley Roots   Antonio’s background is rooted in applied econometrics and mathematical forecast models designed to help food brands optimize retail assortments and international export distribution. In 2009, he stepped into the role of CEO at Fiere di Parma through its institutional backing from Crédit Agricole. Located in Italy's famed "Food Valley," th...

Bridging the Academic Gap to Solve a Massive Engineering Problem   Maxime's expertise lies in the structural design of offshore lattice steel frames. During his PhD, he recognized that welding tubular components is incredibly troublesome to calculate and prone to extreme material fatigue. He partnered with cofounder and inventor Marco Pavlovic, who proposed a radical solution to bond steel tubular...

Bridging the Gap from Academic Labs to Marketable Products   Alina identifies fundamentally as a scientist who is deeply motivated by seeing advanced technology packed and commercialized to solve real world problems. After shifting from academia to industry at a startup called Skytree, she met her physics professor and aerospace engineer cofounders, Rudolf and Christian. The duo was explicitly hun...

The Surfing Trip Epiphany and Shifting Focus   Shaun traces the origin of Mushroom Material to a 2018 surfing trip to Indonesia. Expecting pristine ocean waters, he was instead hit with plastic bags wrapping around his ankles and beaches covered in Styrofoam. The experience had a profound emotional impact, driving the mechanical engineer to drop his plans for a travel app and dedicate himself to b...

Operational Grit and the Massive VC Boom in China   Claude-Sébastien began his career with manufacturing giant Saint-Gobain, spending nine years navigating operations and running a fast growing abrasive business in China. Transitioning to Saint-Gobain's corporate venture capital arm, Nova, in 2018, he witnessed a historic wave of venture funding. During this era, Chinese tech rapidly advanced from...

The Behavioral Lens of Sociology in Startup Building   Rather than taking a traditional business track, Nina shifted her academic focus to sociology, politics, and economics. She firmly believes that studying group behavior and societal shifts provides the ultimate foundation for building a startup. By matching deep analytical insights with strong operational leadership tools learned during her ma...

Key highlights How Backed grew from a $30M first fund to a newly closed $100M Fund III, with top-quartile returns and 5 unicorns across 100 investments. The founder traits they optimize for: deep competitiveness, speed under uncertainty, and “PQ” - a founder’s magnetic pull on top talent and early believers. Why the biggest outcomes come from betting early on markets that look strange, overlooked,...

Meeting in the Space Cafe and a Pact on a Napkin   Sarah’s path to battery recycling began in the unique tech hub of Luxembourg, where she worked for the space agency and her cofounder, Xenia, worked for a space startup. After meeting at a networking event called Space Cafe, they signed a literal napkin promising to build a company together one day. Three years later, after Xenia published a break...

Living Through Three Distinct Eras of Tech Sacha began his tech career in the 1990s, recalling a time when he had to explain what an email was to friends and family before launching a Hotmail competitor called Latin Mail. After selling his first major company, Latin Red, right before the dot-com crash in 1999, he spent nearly a decade at Betfair during the rise of online gaming. He attributes the...

From Early Computer Vision to the Commoditization of AI Ramzi traces his tech roots back to co-founding the mobile photography platform EyeEm in 2010. To scale the curation and licensing of millions of photos, his team built early computer vision and machine learning models starting in 2013. While EyeEm once out-benchmarked tech giants like Google and Microsoft, Ramzi notes that the underlying tec...

Henrietta’s Journey from FMCG to FoodTech VC Henrietta Hearth’s path to venture capital began with a deep interest in nutrition and public health. After realizing the limitations of public health campaigns, she pivoted to the corporate world, launching over 100 products at firms like Danone and L’Oréal. Her transition into venture capital came via an MBA and a desire to drive meaningful change in...

A Mission Born from the Amazon Nicolas’s journey began with a first-hand experience in Bolivia, where he witnessed the environmental impact of industrial meat production and deforestation. This planted the seed for a mission-driven career focused on sustainable food. After stints in both corporate and nonprofit sectors, he became convinced that cell-cultivated meat could offer a breakthrough solut...

Building Ask Mona Before the AI Boom Marion co-founded Ask Mona in 2017 with the goal of making culture more interactive and accessible by enabling conversations with artworks. Back then, they used custom-built NLP tools, and the idea of combining AI and culture was seen as niche. Today, Ask Mona works with major cultural institutions worldwide, leveraging generative AI to help organizations perso...

From Startup Founder to Ecosystem Bridge-Builder Ilias Benjelloun’s journey began with identifying untapped talent in Canada’s tech scene and helping create community among builders. He transitioned from launching startups to developing programs at large institutions like Desjardins, where he helped align startup innovation with corporate goals. His goal has remained constant: unlocking value trap...

From Michelin Stars to Mission-Driven Impact Yannick Alléno is best known for revolutionizing French cuisine. But in recent years, he’s stepped into an entirely different arena— road safety advocacy . After his son’s life was taken in a senseless car crash, Yannick transformed his grief into action, founding an association to tackle road violence through legislative reform, youth support, and tech...

SOSV: Deep Tech Before It Was Cool SOSV wasn’t always a billion-dollar fund—it began as a scrappy experiment. Ten years ago, the team was writing $50K checks. Today, it’s a global operation with $1.5B under management, backing 60+ new startups annually and running two specialized programs: HAX for hard tech (robotics, industrial, mobility) IndieBio for biotech, food, health, and sustainability The...

Strong by Form: From Radical Idea to JEC Sustainability Winner What started as a niche academic research project has become a deep tech startup operating across Europe and Latin America , with millions raised in private funding and grants . Strong by Form developed Woodflow , a technology that turns natural timber fibers into 3D-formed structural materials , enabling strong, lightweight, and carbo...

From Business Research to Particle Physics Linn’s path into deep tech began in business and innovation management, including time at Vienna University of Economics and Business. Her initial exposure to CERN came through an EU-funded Marie Curie research project focused on valorizing technologies for future particle accelerators. That unique intersection—cutting-edge science meets real-world applic...

From Surfboards to Sustainable Composites What started as a DIY surfboard made from recycled cardboard quickly turned into a deep-tech material startup. François initially entered—and won—an innovation competition in California. But the surf industry was too niche, so he pivoted to a broader mission: replace carbon-intensive materials in furniture, mobility, and industrial design. What Is Airboard...

From Utilities to Venture Capital: A Career at the Crossroads of Innovation Matt’s career began in the energy sector during a pivotal time of deregulation in California. This early exposure to innovation within legacy industries laid the foundation for a lifelong pursuit: helping large corporations and startups work together to drive transformative change. After 15 years in VC, a stint as an entre...

From Defense to Deep Tech: A Mission-Driven Pivot Sam’s professional path began in defense and humanitarian operations, where she witnessed firsthand the enormous waste created by high-tech, mission-critical gear—aircraft components, body armor, and more. Frustrated by the environmental impact and economic loss of disposal, she teamed up with Jamie Meighan , a former RAF officer, to co-found Uplif...

From Textiles to Tech: Michiel’s Unconventional Path Michiel Scheffer’s roots lie in the textile industry, but his career has always been at the crossroads of manufacturing, innovation, and public policy . Starting with a thesis on EU research in 1986, he’s worn many hats—consultant, regional politician, and academic. His experience designing startup support mechanisms at a regional level set the...

From Consulting to Climate Investment: The Birth of Slate Sébastien Léger's path to venture capital began with nearly two decades at McKinsey, advising on cleantech and building decarbonization scenarios. Around 2020, driven by curiosity about the "next 40%" of technologies not yet at economic parity, he shifted focus toward startups. This exploration led to the co-founding of Slate Venture Capita...