Jean de La Rochebrochard

Who they are

Jean de La Rochebrochard is Managing Partner at Kima Ventures — co-founded New Wave, a €56M seed fund, alongside Pia d'Iribarne and Antoine Martin, and authored the book 'Human Machine'.

Person

Jean joined Kima Ventures in 2015 when it was already executing roughly 100 deals a year at ~€150k a ticket, transitioning leadership from co-founder Jérémie Berrebi — and he's been running it ever since, now over a decade in. Before that, the path was unusually broad: Sciences Po Lille for international and European studies, then stints at UNESCO, the OECD (where he rose to Deputy Head of the Forum), the Embassy of France in India, Hindustan Times, and The Family — each stop in institutions or platforms sitting at the junction of policy, media, and early-stage ideas. He also holds a Master in Corporate Finance from EBS Universität für Wirtschaft und Recht and a Wharton Global Management Academy credential, plus a coaching certificate from INSEAD. In 2020, while still at Kima, he co-founded New Wave — a €56M seed fund writing €500K–€2M checks — alongside Pia d'Iribarne, Antoine Martin, Alex Yazdi, and Xavier Niel. He also spent time at Cassius VC, where he worked alongside founder Emmanuel Seugé on the third Cassius fund in 2024. The through-line is institution-hopping from multilateral policy into startup capital, always at the earliest stage. He writes a Substack newsletter called 'Venture Prose' at 2lr.substack.com, posts on Medium at medium.com/@2lr on founder psychology and early-stage investing, authored the book 'Human Machine', hosts or has hosted the Silicon Carne and Finscale podcasts, and gave a TEDx talk titled 'In search for peaceful struggle'. Possibly — the custom GPT he built on his own content ('Jean de La Rochebrochard - 2lr GPT') signals someone experimenting with how a VC's intellectual output scales.

Company

Kima Ventures completed 132 new investments in 2025, maintaining its pace of 2–3 startups per week — the highest deployment frequency in its history as of the claims available. In early 2026, the fund participated in seed rounds for Revox (€2.5M, January 2026) and Beycome ($2.5M, January 2026), and a Series A for Plume, before backing Cleo Labs and Sillage in April 2026. That same month, portfolio company Shipup was acquired by Zigzag Global. The fund is backed entirely by Xavier Niel via a single-LP evergreen structure, deploys standardized €150K checks at seed, and deliberately does not reinvest in companies it has already funded — a deliberate choice to avoid market-signal confusion and protect founder equity.

Market

Kima Ventures sits at the extreme high-frequency end of early-stage investing globally, with over 1,295 companies backed across 24 countries, 22 unicorns, 10 IPOs, and 183 acquisitions — including Wise, Algolia, and Front. Its closest French co-investors include Bpifrance, Alven, and Europa, though its single-LP, thesis-agnostic model makes it structurally different from conventional institutional funds. The wider early-stage market is navigating compressed valuations — down rounds up 67% and median Series B pre-money valuations down 32% year-over-year in 2024 — while geopolitical and regulatory dynamics, including tightened foreign direct investment screening in Europe, are adding friction to cross-border deals.

Network

Jean's gravitational center is Xavier Niel — billionaire founder of Free, 42, and Station F, whose personal capital Jean manages at Kima Ventures. Within the fund, he works alongside Alexis Robert (General Partner) and Chloe Timsit (Partner). His co-founding of New Wave with Pia d'Iribarne (formerly Accel) and Antoine Martin, plus his Cassius collaboration with Emmanuel Seugé, shows a habit of pulling tight circles across French VC.

Xavier Niel· Founder & LP, Kima Ventures; founder of Free, 42, and Station F
Alexis Robert· General Partner, Kima Ventures
Pia d'Iribarne· Co-founder, New Wave (formerly Accel VP)
Antoine Martin· Co-founder, New Wave
Emmanuel Seugé· Founder, Cassius VC
Jérémie Berrebi· Co-founder, Kima Ventures (predecessor as managing partner)

How they likely show up

Long tenure at Kima Ventures (joined 2015, still Managing Partner as of 2026) → thinks in fund cycles and decades, not individual deal timelines.
Deploys 2–3 investments per week at standardized ticket sizes → values speed and systematized judgment over prolonged deliberation; pattern recognition is the core skill he's honed.
Active Substack, Medium blog, book, TEDx, Silicon Carne podcast, and Raise Summit 2025 appearances → highly comfortable being public-facing; likely responds well to being asked for his views on record.
Co-founded New Wave while serving as Managing Partner at Kima → high parallel bandwidth; not content with one lane.
Career arc from UNESCO/OECD policy work to early-stage VC → brings institutional and geopolitical framing to investment decisions, not just product instinct.
Built a custom GPT on his own content → Possibly — experiments with distribution and tooling for his own ideas; treats his intellectual output as a product in itself.

Conversation tips

→ Reference a specific post from 'Venture Prose' (2lr.substack.com) or his Medium — he publishes substantively and will know immediately whether you've read it.
→ Ask about the high-frequency model specifically: 2–3 deals a week requires a very different decision process than a typical seed fund, and it's the thing that makes Kima genuinely unusual.
→ His Wharton and INSEAD credentials sit alongside his Sciences Po and OECD background — he bridges policy and capital fluently; engage him on the macro or regulatory environment, not just deal flow.
→ Don't conflate Kima with New Wave — they're structurally different vehicles and he's held distinct roles in each; getting that right signals you've done the homework.

Toolbox

Openers

Open on the 132 investments Kima completed in 2025 — at 2–3 startups per week, the firm's pace is extreme by any global benchmark, and asking how decision quality holds at that volume is a genuinely interesting question.
Reference his TEDx talk 'In search for peaceful struggle' — it's the most revealing public window into his personal philosophy, and naming it specifically signals you went beyond the LinkedIn summary.
Mention the 2lr GPT he built on his own content — he built a tool that lets people query his intellectual output, which is an unusual bet for a VC to make and worth unpacking.

Discovery questions

Kima's model — standardized €150K checks, no reinvestment policy, single LP — is structurally unlike almost every other seed fund. What does that constraint force you to be better at?
You co-founded New Wave in 2020 while running Kima, and later worked at Cassius. How do you think about the difference in what each vehicle lets you do as an investor?
Your early career ran through UNESCO, the OECD, and the French Embassy in India before you entered VC. Does that policy and multilateral background still shape how you read a market or a founding team?

Avoid

Don't pitch him on the French ecosystem in generic terms — he's been one of its most active architects for over a decade and engages with specifics, not boosterism.

Make it yours