With over 30 years experience, Jean-Michel Deligny is one of the most respected investment bankers in the European technology market and regularly is an invited speaker at international industry events.
Since he began his time in the sector, he has seen it evolve.
“I have been working with entrepreneurs since the early 2000s so the amount of experience and investor relationships accumulated along the way are second to none,” he said. “But what has changed is the speed at which these businesses evolve and therefore our ability to get a greater variety of investors involved, not only venture capitalists but also family offices, corporates, and many more.”
An avowed aerospace “buff”, Jean-Michel works across continental Europe with some of the most exciting technology companies providing deep financial advice that enables technologies not only to come to market, but to be successful.
“I am interested in breakthrough business propositions and how to successfully build companies around them,” he explained.
His dedication to his work is born from what he says is the best business lesson he received, which was: “Be passionate about what you do – because you are never sure what really does work. So you may as well have fun doing it!”
Previously, Jean-Michel was the European Head of Technology Investment Banking at UBS. This followed a tenure at Broadview International (now part of Jefferies), where he worked on more than 35 public and private transactions. Jean-Michel started his career as a Strategy Consultant at Coopers and Lybrand.
Of the many deals Jean-Michel has helped strike, two stick in his mind.
The first was his work with Aldebaran Robotics, the world category leader in humanoid consumer robotics that was sold to Softbank, with Jean-Michel working as an adviser from Series A (2007) to the exit eight years later (2015).
The second was Scality. “It was a $60m late-stage financing for a US/French business in the tough but strategic space of multi-cloud storage.”
Jean-Michel holds an MBA from Ecole Supérieure des Sciences Economiques et Commerciales (ESSEC) business school in Paris and is fluent in English and French (mother tongue).
He still believes passionately the best business advice he received: “Once committed, see it through.”
But his personal motto comes from the sci-fi movie, Galaxy Quest – “Never give up, never surrender.”