Anne-Sophie Carrese (Elaia): “Equality begins by showing an example”

Leaders League: You are a partner at a venture capital firm, an environment where men traditionally outnumber women. How did you get to where you are today?
Anne-Sophie Carrese: I did indeed start out in a highly technical environment featuring state-of-the-art products and teams made up principally of men. This was because I was passionate about aircraft growing up, which led me to study engineering at university.    

After graduating, I had a stint with the French Corps of Armament, which led to a position at the Ministry of Defense, where I worked as a test engineer on the engines for the Rafale fighter jet. Since both my parents were scientists, I didn’t see anything unusual about being a woman who was passionate about technology.

At university, I never got the sense that the feedback given was filtered to take my gender into consideration. It was the same for everyone, boys and girls. What can be a source of discrimination for women, however, is your network, since the natural sisterhood which develops between women is largely absent in an environment which is male dominated, so you have to be able to build a network comprised mainly of men.

What got you interested in the world of investment?
An investment is the product of three interlinked steps: one’s initial feeling after getting to know a company or project, a rigorous analysis of what is possible and, lastly, negotiating the investment and working with the board of the company, a relationship which functions a bit like a marriage in practice. Each company is different, and I like both the analytical and human aspect of investment.

I got my first taste of the investment business during an internship at the finance branch of General Electric, after which I joined Bpifrance, where I contributed to establishing four funds over the course of a decade.   

The role of the investor is to take a risk when the time is right

My days as a civil servant behind me, I was drawn to an investment career in the private sector. Thanks to a couple of people in my network that I got to know when I was a student, I found out about Elaia, and in particular the work of cofounder Xavier Lazarus. I became a partner in the company in 2017, and was given a mission to establish a second line of funds, linked to the deeptech sector.

What, according to you, is the best way of getting more women involved the tech and investment sectors?
Equality begins by showing an example. At Elaia we employ more women than men, which is not by design I might add, since we simply select the best person for the job, many of whom happen to be female. The fact that we have women on our staff is a positive when it comes to recruiting other women - it’s a virtuous circle. Gender parity at Elaia happened quite organically.

To give you an example, at Elaia there is a higher proportion of female partners than male ones. But diversity at our company is not limited to gender, it also encompasses age, nationality and background. We strongly believe that having a high level of diversity is an advantage, notably from a performance point of view, as it allows us to ask all the right questions at the moment when an investment decision is being taken. 

Given the complexity of the research involved, deeptech would seem to be a long-term subject that is little suited to investor expectations. What criteria do funds apply to investment decisions in this branch of technology.  
It’s a question of people and timing. One must identify the team that will carry the business, the people without whom the company would not succeed. At Elaia we spend a great deal of time meeting with researchers who, thanks to the eight members of our team with PhDs, can feel confident we understand the technical, as well as financial, issues involved in their business.   

The second question is to do with timing. Is this a business whose moment has arrived? Is now the best time to take their technology and launch it in the market? The role of the investor is to take a risk when the time is right. If we are unable to identify the purpose of an innovation or can’t see how to transform it into a viable business, we don’t invest.