Augustin Celier

I’m a Partner at Hexa Scale, where I focus on helping founders break out of linear growth and scale faster. Over the past 14 years, I’ve built and exited companies across e-learning, e-commerce, and deep tech, experiencing firsthand what it takes to build a business.

I’ve founded four companies, leading to three successful exits. My journey began in 2009 with an early online course platform, followed by a furniture e-commerce business. In deep tech, I co-founded Shuffle, a vertical search engine acquired by John Paul (Accor Hotels), and Uptime, a predictive maintenance company for elevators that combined hardware, AI, and data to modernize an outdated industry. Uptime was my most ambitious venture, raising €15 million in VC funding and scaling to 75 employees before being acquired by Otis.

At Hexa Scale, I work with founders who have built strong businesses but need help to scale. They have a profitable company, but making the leap to category leadership feels out of reach. That’s where we come in, taking a majority stake and using our deep operational expertise to unlock their next phase of growth, diving into product, go-to-market, brand, leadership, and more.

I’ve been in the founder’s seat, so I know how it feels when you’ve built something great, but you would like to go much faster, much higher, and you don't know exactly how. My goal is to help founders crack that next stage and turn a strong business into a great one.

We partner with companies that have real traction and strong fundamentals, but need the right strategy and operational know-how to scale further. The startups we work best with share these traits:

• Small B2B SaaS companies with $1–10M ARR
• Post-product-market fit, with proven demand
• Capital efficient, prioritizing sustainable growth
• Breakeven or profitable, already on a solid financial footing
• 10–40% YoY growth, but with untapped potential for acceleration

Above all, we look for companies where our operational expertise can unlock new growth. We don't fit with every market, every expansion strategy, and that is OK.

Ultimately, great companies are built by great founders. The best partnerships happen when we work with founders who are sharp, pragmatic, and collaborative—leaders who know their business inside out but also recognize the value of fresh perspectives and experienced operators to break through to the next level. Scaling isn’t a solo journey, and the founders who go the distance are the ones who embrace that challenge head-on.