.gif)
Matthieu Vaxelaire
Backstory
I joined eFounders in 2012 as a partner, where I had the privilege of helping launch unicorns like Front (HX14) and Aircall (HX14). I then led Mention as CEO (HX13), taking it all the way to acquisition and co-founded Colette.club. In 2022, I returned to Hexa as a Partner, I am passionate about launching several companies at a time and working with ambitious entrepreneurs.
I love helping founders bring their visions to life by generating ideas, shaping market positioning, and guiding strategic direction. I’m here to help navigate critical business decisions, secure key partnerships, and connect with top-tier investors. At Hexa, I’ve supported startups in raising funds in record time with backers like LocalGlobe, Point Nine, and Frst. For me, there’s nothing more rewarding than helping ambitious founders turn bold ideas into thriving businesses.
Outside of work, I’m passionate about triathlons — so much so that I’m organizing one! That said, I still can’t swim crawl to save my life.
What he looks for in founders
Exothermic energy—that’s what I call the type of energy that inspires and unites, and it’s exactly what I look for in founders. As a founder, your ability to excite investors, clients, and teams is critical. It’s simple: if I leave a conversation with you feeling more energized than when I walked in, I know you have what it takes.
I also value those who combine speed with reflection—those who move fast, take decisive action, and consistently seek feedback. The ones who can push the tempo while asking, “How can I improve?” at the end of the week are the ones who stand out.
From my experience as an entrepreneur and working alongside founders, I’ve learned that entrepreneurship is an all-encompassing journey. While it may offer more flexibility than the gruelling careers of investment banking or consulting—making it possible to balance being a parent—it still demands a profound level of commitment. I look for founders who not only understand this intensity but are fully prepared to embrace it.
Areas of interests and ideas
Traditional service industries have long relied on external agencies and freelancers, creating inefficient and costly workflows. We're looking for founders who can replace these external services with AI-powered tools that companies can use internally. Instead of hiring a legal agency, recruiting firm, or design service, companies will use specialized AI platforms that deliver high-quality results at a fraction of the cost. Early examples like Reki in financial services show the potential – transforming entire service categories by bringing specialized capabilities directly into organizations.
By specializing in specific industries, vertical SaaS companies can address unique workflows and achieve greater market share than horizontal solutions. Advances in cloud computing, embedded finance APIs, and AI now enable vertical SaaS companies to scale efficiently and unlock new revenue streams, challenging the long-held belief that the TAM of vertical SaaS was too small.
With FranchiseX-1, we want to help Franchisors better manage and grow their Franchisees network. From opening new franchisee to growing it, we want to build the all-in-one solution for franchisors to grow. With FranchiseX-2, we want to build a digital franchise, such as Slice (Pizza), Moxie (MedSpa), etc for another vertical. It’s a vertical SaaS to help all operations in a specific merchant category.
The developer tool ecosystem continually reinvents itself to meet evolving needs. From PHP and C-like languages 20 years ago to JavaScript, Python, and Rust today, the landscape is always shifting. We believe LLMs will fundamentally transform the developer's role, with a greater short-term impact than on blue-collar jobs. Many tools in use today will be replaced in the coming years to align with AI and emerging languages.
We help companies ship great AI features, better and faster. Basalt allows you to prototype quickly, evaluate easily and deploy with confidence your prompts. We already have customers and an incredible CTO, we are looking for a cofounder to join us.
Voice technology is approaching a tipping point where it will become a primary interface for professional work. We believe the next wave of productivity gains will come from voice-native applications that go beyond simple dictation to enable complex task completion and workflow management. We're looking for founders who understand both the technical challenges and human factors in voice interfaces, and who can create experiences that feel natural while delivering real productivity gains.
We are building a specialized voice AI that handles the first customer phone calls for service businesses. AI can now handle first-level phone conversations—answering questions, routing calls, and scheduling appointments — the solution integrates directly with systems like ERPs and CRMs, using industry-specific data to ensure high accuracy.
At RecruitmentX, we want to reinvent recruitment by leveraging a verticalized voiced AI. Our solution enhances every interaction between recruiters and candidates, enabling recruiters to focus fully on candidates while we handle the rest.
We're interested in AI agents that transform internal organizational workflows, focusing on the complex, repetitive processes that currently consume significant human capital. These agents are designed to operate entirely within a company's existing systems, optimizing internal operations that are currently manual, fragmented, or inefficient. We're looking for founders who can build AI agents that integrate deeply with a company's specific software ecosystem, enabling intelligent automation that goes beyond simple task completion to even improve how its currently done.
We aim to build an AI workspace for life sciences companies to automate internal processes. Initially, it will help pharmaceutical, medical device, and biotech companies automate the creation of regulatory and compliance documents, with plans to streamline more processes over time.
.webp)
.webp)
.webp)
Introducing WhatsappX: help shape the future of customer engagement
