Pia d'Iribarne

Who they are

Pia d'Iribarne is Co-founder & Managing Partner at Main Object Capital — previously co-founded New Wave VC, a $56M European seed fund backed by Xavier Niel, with investments including Mistral AI and Sweep.

Person

Pia started at HEC Paris (MSc, 2011) and took the conventional consulting path through McKinsey before pivoting hard into venture. She moved from McKinsey into VC at Accel, then Felix Capital, then Stride.VC where she joined as the third partner — a progression through progressively earlier-stage, more founder-proximate work. In December 2020 she co-founded New Wave, a Paris-based seed fund with a $56M debut vehicle, alongside Jean de La Rochebrochard and with Xavier Niel as backer and president, and Yuri Milner among the LPs — a credibility signal for a first-time fund. New Wave backed notable companies including Mistral AI and Sweep (which raised $100M). In 2024–2025 she stepped out to co-found Main Object Capital, an early-stage firm bridging Europe and the US, with Antoine Martin (co-founder of Zenly) and Alex Yazdi (founder of Voodoo) as co-founders. She also completed Le Wagon's coding bootcamp and audited Art History at the École du Louvre — a combination that suggests she takes the craft of understanding founders seriously, both technically and culturally. She writes on Medium at medium.com/@piadiribarne on VC and early-stage investing, and has spoken at Slush as a founder and appeared in YouTube interviews on maximizing investor value.

Network

Pia's closest professional orbit spans her co-founders at Main Object — Antoine Martin (co-founder of Zenly) and Alex Yazdi (founder of Voodoo) — and Jean de La Rochebrochard, her co-founder at New Wave VC. At New Wave she worked closely with portfolio founders including Rachel Delacour (Sweep) and Jean-Louis Quéguiner (Gladia), and had Xavier Niel as fund president and backer. Yuri Milner (DST) was also an LP at New Wave.

Jean de La Rochebrochard· Co-founder, New Wave VC
Antoine Martin· Co-founder, Main Object Capital; Co-founder, Zenly
Alex Yazdi· Co-founder, Main Object Capital; Founder, Voodoo
Xavier Niel· President and backer, New Wave VC; Founder, Iliad / Station F
Rachel Delacour· Founder, Sweep (New Wave portfolio company)
Jean-Louis Quéguiner· Founder, Gladia (New Wave portfolio company)

How they likely show up

Career arc from McKinsey → Accel → Felix Capital → Stride.VC → founding New Wave → founding Main Object → suggests someone who iterates deliberately, moving toward more ownership and earlier-stage conviction at each step.
Co-founding two funds (New Wave in 2020, Main Object in 2024–2025) alongside full-time investing roles → high agency, not content to remain an employee-investor when she can build the vehicle.
LP base at New Wave included Xavier Niel and Yuri Milner for a debut $56M fund → strong relationship capital and credibility-building instincts; she can recruit heavy backers.
Le Wagon coding bootcamp alongside an MSc from HEC Paris and Art History auditing at the École du Louvre → intellectual curiosity that crosses disciplines; she invests in understanding the technical and cultural texture of what founders build.
Active on Medium and Slush as a speaker → comfortable in public-facing, thought-leadership mode; not a behind-the-scenes-only operator.
Possibly — medium tenure shape across multiple firms before founding her own suggests she moves when the learning curve flattens, not when things get hard.

Conversation tips

→ She has built two funds from scratch — ask about the specific decision to move from New Wave to Main Object rather than raise a second New Wave fund; that transition is the most recent and revealing strategic choice.
→ The Mistral AI investment is likely a point of pride — referencing it specifically (Arthur Mensch, the $1.7B raise she amplified publicly) signals you've done real homework.
→ Her co-founders at Main Object are operators-turned-investors (Zenly, Voodoo) — she seems to deliberately surround herself with founder DNA; this framing resonates more than 'sector thesis' language.
→ She writes on Medium about VC and early-stage investing — referencing a specific post shows you've engaged with her thinking, not just her CV.
→ Don't lead with Paris-centric framing — Main Object is explicitly positioned between Europe and the US, and she's based in London; she's operating beyond the French tech bubble.

Toolbox

Openers

Open on the Main Object co-founding team — Antoine Martin built Zenly (sold to Snap) and Alex Yazdi built Voodoo; she assembled two of the most operationally credible French founders as partners, which is a pointed statement about the kind of fund she's building.
Reference her public amplification of Mistral AI's fundraise alongside Arthur Mensch — she was an early backer and vocal supporter, which means she has a front-row view of how Europe's most prominent AI lab has scaled.
She completed Le Wagon's coding bootcamp alongside a career as a senior investor — bring it up as a question about what it changed in how she evaluates technical founders; it's an unusual move that she chose deliberately.

Discovery questions

When you moved from New Wave to co-found Main Object with Antoine and Alex, what did you want to do differently — in fund structure, geography, or the kind of founder relationship you're building?
Your Mistral AI investment came very early — what did you see in the Mistral team at seed that the market hadn't priced in yet?
You did Le Wagon after years as a VC — how did learning to code change the questions you ask founders in technical diligence, if at all?

Avoid

Don't treat her as a 'French tech' investor — Main Object is explicitly a Europe-US fund and she's London-based; positioning anything as purely a Paris ecosystem play will feel like you haven't tracked her most recent move.

Make it yours