François Candelon

I was delighted to participate in two panels at IPEM this year—one on “How AI is rewriting the PE playbooks” alongside Gaël Gibert from Advent and Guillaume Princen from Anthropic, and another on “Investing in the AI revolution” with Lauriane Requena from KKR and Astrid Moullé-Berteaux from Headline. At Seven2, we see AI not as a buzzword, but as a true industrial revolution—akin to electricity in its transformative potential. The real opportunity for private equity isn’t in chasing the next unicorn, but mostly in helping established companies harness AI to drive operational excellence and margin expansion. Our focus is on the “boring” but powerful applications of AI: automating repetitive tasks, optimizing processes, and leveraging proprietary data to revisit business models and create defensible advantages. The question for investors is not whether AI will change the landscape, but whether you want to own the companies before or after that transformation. We’re building the next generation of AI-enabled market leaders and keep an eye on AI-native companies that combine robust AI applications with high-value services. These businesses are particularly attractive for LBO: they already generate EBITDA, have a clear and growing role in supporting traditional companies to adopt AI, and are resilient against being displaced by hyperscalers. Stay tuned for more on how we’re putting this vision into action. #IPEM #PrivateEquity #AI #ValueCreation #Seven2

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LP Tech is now a category. And we have the Oxford paper to prove it: Ludovic Phalippou has published "𝘓𝘪𝘮𝘪𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘗𝘢𝘳𝘵𝘯𝘦𝘳𝘴 𝘷𝘴 𝘜𝘯𝘭𝘪𝘮𝘪𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘛𝘦𝘤𝘩𝘯𝘰𝘭𝘰𝘨𝘪𝘦𝘴." It's about the unique role of AI in private markets... and why LP Tech infrastructure is fundamentally different. 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗯𝗹𝗲𝗺: LPs face a mismatch between their data and what AI needs: • Private equity takes 10+ years to validate predictions,  • Public markets validate models in real-time • Disclosures arrive quarterly, 3-6 months late • Every GP uses different formats AI algorithms are built for abundant, high-frequency data. Private markets offer the opposite. 𝗕𝘂𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲 𝗶𝘀 𝗺𝗮𝘀𝘀𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝗽𝗼𝘁𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗮𝗹: Phalippou's research shows GP narratives contain predictive signals. Fundraising documents and quarterly reports can forecast performance, if you can extract them systematically. The problem isn't lack of information. It's that information resists standardization. And that is the potential of new technology. 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗶𝗻𝗳𝗿𝗮𝘀𝘁𝗿𝘂𝗰𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗲 𝗹𝗮𝘆𝗲𝗿: The paper (partially) maps the LP tech ecosystem, many of whom are participating in this week's LP Tech Summit - and references our summit as evidence of a rising tide. Because LP tech isn't just a new breed of SaaS. The companies shaping this space represent a new infrastructure for transforming heterogeneous disclosures into structured intelligence. And that intelligence will shape and deliver private market returns for the good of everyone invested in the world's most important Limited Partners. 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝘀𝘁𝗿𝗮𝗶𝗻𝘁𝘀: Some GPs now prohibit LPs from using LLMs on their documents. This could lock valuable unstructured data back into analog form before AI adoption scales. That should change. 𝗪𝗵𝘆 𝗜𝘁 𝗺𝗮𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗿𝘀 𝘀𝗼 𝗺𝘂𝗰𝗵: LP Tech exists because private markets have a structurally different data problem. You can't apply public market AI tools and expect them to work. Phalippou's paper gives academic validation to what practitioners know: LP operations require purpose-built infrastructure. The category is real. And we're all just getting started! 🚀 🚀 Thanks so much to Dr. Phalippou for his work, and double thanks to Riley Thomas for sharing the paper with me. Read it in full you won't be disappointed.

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Feldhoff & Cie invests in Europe’s most promising female founders Yesterday, Auxxo announced the first closing of Auxxo Female Catalyst Fund II, raising €26 million to invest in early-stage European startups with female founding teams. We are proud to be part of this commitment to expanding access to capital and driving lasting change in the venture landscape. Congratulations to Bettine Schmitz, Dr. Gesa Miczaika, the whole Auxxo Female Catalyst Fund team and all fellow investors who share this vision. Excited to see what we can build together! 

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🚨 The battle for the future of software is no longer about who can write code fastest — it’s about who owns the data and context to power AI. Generative coding agents and tools from Anysphere, GitHub Copilot, Windsurf Cognition and poolside are commoditizing software development. In this new era, context is king and data is the moat. Winners will be those who: 1️⃣ Embed deeply into workflows to capture rich, high-fidelity data 2️⃣ Engineer context precisely at inference time 3️⃣ Reinforce models through usage, not static prompts Legacy SaaS vendors face eroding moats. AI-native apps with data flywheels and contextual intelligence are rising fast. 👇 Full article in the comments. If you’re building in this space, I want to hear from you. Thank you to Jeff Haynie, Jason Warner, Çağla Kaymaz and Vedant Agrawal for providing input and feedback on this article! #AI #Software #VC #DeveloperTools #ContextIsKing #FutureOfWork

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Today we reached a massive milestone at Zama : bootstrapping in less than 1 milliseconds. Bootstrapping in FHE allows “cleaning” the noise in encrypted data, and is responsible for the vast majority of the computation time. Thus, the faster bootstrapping gets, the more confidential transactions per second the Zama Protocol can process. We achieved this after years of research on efficiently using GPUs for FHE. The results are MINDBLOWING: Boostrapping latency: - 2021: 53 ms - today: 0.9 ms - speedup: 56x When applied to integers arithmetics, the results are even more insane: 64 bit encrypted addition latency: - 2022: 2,000 ms - today: 8.7 ms - speedup: 230x 64 bit encrypted multiplication latency: - 2022: 13,000 ms - today: 32 ms - speedup: 400x To understand what this means in practice, lets look at confidential stablecoin transfers: - 2022: 0.1 tps - today: 230 tps - speedup: 2,300x And it’s so cheap also: about $0.0001 / transaction for a confidential stablecoin. Tldr; FHE is now FASTER than Ethereum and most L2s! And it’s only a matter of months before we can reach 1000 tps. Next steps: build an FHE ASIC to reach 100k tps by 2029. Enough to cover Visa, Mastercard and SWIFT volume combined. 🚀🚀🚀 Full post in the comments

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Thrilled to see Meta — Thomas Scialom, PhD, Grégoire Mialon, and the brilliant Meta Agents team — launch 𝗚𝗮𝗶𝗮𝟮, built within their new 𝗔𝗴𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗥𝗟 𝗘𝗻𝘃𝗶𝗿𝗼𝗻𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 platform! Gaia2 sets a new bar for agent evaluation by testing models in dynamic, real-world conditions, where APIs timeout, priorities shift, and unexpected friction derails even the smartest systems. The ARE RL Environment framework is designed to 𝗿𝘂𝗻 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗲𝘃𝗮𝗹𝘂𝗮𝘁𝗲 𝗮𝗴𝗲𝗻𝘁𝘀 in environments that look and feel like the real world. (After all, in this day and age, winning IMO medals is a challenge of the past. It’s deploying models into the rich, long tail messiness of the real world that’s the golden frontier.) Two years ago, Meta pioneered this vision with 𝗚𝗔𝗜𝗔, a benchmark we were proud to help build. Since then, we’ve had the privilege of collaborating again on 𝗚𝗮𝗶𝗮𝟮 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗔𝗥𝗘, creating the diverse scenarios and data that helped bring these ideas to life — with a team at Meta that recognized the importance of RL environments long before they became the hot new kid on the block. We’ve always believed that training models is only half the story. Measuring them — with the right objectives, in the right environments — is just as critical. Who cares if a model gets better at the wrong thing? 𝗚𝗮𝗶𝗮𝟮 𝗶𝘀 𝗮 𝗯𝗶𝗴 𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗽 𝗳𝗼𝗿𝘄𝗮𝗿𝗱 𝗼𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗷𝗼𝘂𝗿𝗻𝗲𝘆. We’re excited to keep collaborating toward powerful, reliable AI that works even in the chaos of the real world. Congrats to the Meta team! https://lnkd.in/eF5NRVuF

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🎙️ Special IBC 2025 Episode – Retention Zone One of the most interesting conversations I had at IBC this year was with Gilles Domartini, CEO of Cleeng, right after the second edition of Retention Zone Live. We talked about how innovation in subscriptions is shifting — becoming more accessible and more intelligent. 👉 The big headline: Cleeng Pro. ➡️ A simplified way for any mid-sized publisher to launch a subscription service in under 60 minutes. ➡️ With just a few clicks you can create offers, set up a subscription page, consolidate app store data, and enable customer care. ➡️ And the real game changer? The first 10,000 monthly subscribers are free. ➡️ No contracts, no upfront cost — just the freedom to experiment, learn, and grow. For Vimeo users and smaller publishers frustrated by limited analytics, this could open entirely new doors. 👉 The second big announcement: ChurnIQ AI-ssistant. ➡️ Imagine a retention super-expert on demand. You ask: who’s at risk of churning, on which platform, and what’s the revenue impact? You get the answer instantly. ➡️ But more importantly, it doesn’t stop at insights. It suggests proven remedies, integrates with tools like Braze or Mailchimp, and can trigger campaigns automatically. It’s agentic AI in action — analytics flowing directly into decisions and execution. 📲 Finally, Gilles reminded me why we started Retention Zone in the first place: to create a space where the industry can share real challenges and shape better solutions together. That dialogue has already influenced Cleeng’s roadmap, and it shows the power of community in innovation. A guy with a scarf Benedicte Guichard Alexis Gaï Kirstin White Hjalmar Koedijker Joachim Bergman Kamila Palka Enzo Bermond Kübra Güven Chris Welsh #IBC2025 #RetentionZone #Subscriptions #AI #Streaming

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🚀 Last news, yes it is summer time and we still do deals ! We are excited to support deeptech innovation in healthcare. Better Angle is proud to join the €2.5M seed round of AUSTRAL Dx and Philippe Mendels-Flandre, alongside leading investors including SORBONNE VENTURE by AUDACIA, Aloe Private Equity, IXCORE GROUP, Kima Ventures, Super Capital, and several business angel networks (Capital Cell, Paris Business Angels, Angels Santé). Austral Dx is transforming cardio-pulmonary diagnostics with a non-contact, AI-powered medical device that delivers rapid and objective assessments in under two minutes. Their breakthrough ultrasound-based technology could reshape emergency care and help reduce ER overcrowding — a critical pain point with over 4 million annual visits related to respiratory distress or chest pain. We’re excited to back a visionary team addressing an urgent and global healthcare challenge. This is deeptech with real-world impact — and just the beginning. 👉 Learn more about their mission and technology, link in comment #HealthTech #Deeptech #CardioPulmonary #StartupInvestment #BetterAngle #MedicalInnovation #AIinHealthcare #AustralDx

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Good to see my colleague at AniVC , Vlad Cernouţan, featured in The Woof newsletter 🐾, sharing some sharp insights on what’s shaping investor decisions in the pet space 🔥. 😎 ☕ 🐾 💡 Vlad makes a strong case for what continues to matter: real defensibility — whether through IP, data, or brand equity, and the importance of teams that can go beyond just building products, but also being able to execute and scale business models. He also emphasizes that customer acquisition means little without long-term retention and trust, especially in regulated or care-driven parts of the market. He also highlights a few areas with strong return potential: 👉 Longevity and preventive health are moving from human to pet care, driven by tech and streamlined regulation. 👉 Functional nutrition (“Nutrition 2.0”) is evolving — no longer just about affordability, but about proven, evidence-backed benefits. 👉 AI-powered infrastructure is finally solving some of the stubborn problems in vet ops, insurance, and other fragmented parts of the ecosystem. 👉 Human biotech crossovers and integrated health platforms could reshape the next wave of innovation. 🐾 I am inspired about being able to move a needle in the pet industry, via our work at AniVC and for those who don’t know, our cofounder and partner Anna Skaya is a stellar founder herself—she built Basepaws, one of the first at-home DNA testing startups for pets, and led it all the way to acquisition 😎. Now she’s channeling that same passion into AniVC, helping back the next wave of innovators in the animal space 🚀. So, if you’re building something exciting in pet tech or animal health 🔬, or investing in it 💰, reach out. We’d love to connect! ☕ Last but not least, kudos to the Roy Ben-Tzvi from The Woof Newsletter for the article, link in the comments 👇 Image credit: The Woof.

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