My name is Willy Braun. I'm the co-founder of Galion.exe, a seed-stage venture fund backing AI and scientific startups building new capabilities from day one, up to €2m.

I invest where AI meets complex adaptive systems: from the infrastructure governing how intelligence is produced and distributed, to the sciences reshaping molecules, crops, and cells, to the tools expanding access to the best knowledge, care, and decision-making.

What drives me as an investor is using technology to expand human and scientific capabilities, to better understand and improve living systems, while ensuring its benefits are broadly shared.

I'm also developing a new fund thesis rooted in a simple conviction: we are living through one of the deepest transitions in human history, as machine cognition begins to merge with and augment our own. How that transition unfolds, whom AI serves, what it destroys, what it makes possible, is not determined. It requires deliberately directing energy, talent, and capital toward building a world where AI genuinely expands what it means to live well. I'll be exploring these questions through interviews with researchers and practitioners on Libido Sciendi over the coming months.

Prior to Galion.exe, I co-founded daphni, a pan-European venture capital fund (€170m raised, 28 companies, including BackMarket (Series A, now unicorn), Lifen (Seed), Swile (Seed, now unicorn), Memo Bank (Seed), Shine (Seed), Zoe (Seed)).

I also worked as an Operating Partner at Revaia, a growth fund investing in sustainable scale-ups (portfolio including Algolia (now unicorn), Deepki, Mews, Hublo).

Before investing, I was a co-founder and General Manager of France Digitale, the biggest French lobby gathering startups & investors.

Portfolio

Writing & Research

I write Libido Sciendi, a newsletter with long-form explorations of AI, deep tech, startup strategy, investment, and go-to-market.

I'm also working on the launch of Inflection with Mathieu Daix and Alasta, a magazine exploring how emerging technologies diffuse through society: how new ideas propagate, get adopted, resisted, and ultimately transform institutions and behaviours.

I'm also the author of The French AI Report (first edition with Chausson Finance & Revaia, next edition releasing April 2026 with Chausson & Serena). It features 400+ French AI startups mapped across 5 key sectors, an overview of key investment trends in AI across France and Europe, and exclusive insights from top minds shaping the future of AI.

I also published two books:

• Human Resources for Startups: a practical guide for founders and managers of fast-growing companies
• Internet Marketing 2013: on digital marketing (FNAC & Amazon best-seller)

Interests

I love books, design, philosophy, social sciences (especially psychology, sociology & economics), photography, and storytelling of all forms.

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