Sacha Uzan

Who they are

Sacha Uzan is Chief of Staff and GTM Lead at Linkup — a founding team member who built a Perplexity-like AI search engine in 24 hours without coding experience and shipped a native n8n automation node for the platform.

Person

Sacha studied Financial Analysis at London Business School (2018–2019), then took an unusual path: investment banking at PJT Partners, VC at Global Founders Capital, and a stint as Founder Associate and Head of Growth at Alan — France's high-profile health insurance challenger. Earlier stops include Ontex (Product Owner), Collector Square (International Project Manager), Bollinger+Grohmann Ingenieure (Construction Management), and even LE BHV MARAIS, giving him an unusually cross-sector foundation before settling into tech. He joined Linkup as a founding team member when the company was early-stage and seed-funded. His side projects tell you a lot: he built a Perplexity-like AI search engine in 24 hours without coding experience, shipped Linkup for Google Sheets (an API integration into Sheets), and built an n8n automation node for the platform — all production tools, not demos. The through-line is someone who moves across finance, operations, and growth, then converts that breadth into execution at the earliest stage. He writes actively on Medium at medium.com/@sacha.uzan7 and runs a Substack newsletter under Common Knowledge Media, both focused on AI search, agentic infrastructure, and startup GTM — and he co-authored 'Agentic Infrastructure: Why Access Is the Real Frontier.' He spoke at Applied AI Conference Berlin 2026 on AI and startup ecosystems.

Company

Linkup's most recent product moment is the launch of Linkup /fast, a sub-second web search API the team positioned as the world's most accurate in its class — announced after closing a $10M seed round led by Gradient on February 3, 2026. That round brought in Elaia, Leblon Capital, Weekend Fund, Seedcamp, Axeleo Capital, Motier Ventures, and OPRTRS CLUB alongside a notable angel roster: Olivier Pomel (Datadog), Arthur Mensch (Mistral), Alex Bouaziz and Shuo Wang (Deel), and Florian Douetteau (Dataiku). Total disclosed funding is $13.2M across two rounds, with a prior $3.16M seed from Seedcamp and Axeleo Capital. Linkup also won the ISG Startup Challenge in January 2026, recognized for AI solutions in applications, training, and compliance. The company already counts hundreds of customers including enterprises like KPMG.

Market

Linkup is positioning itself as infrastructure for real-time web access in AI pipelines — a RAG-layer that gives AI agents and chatbots accurate, up-to-date facts from trusted sources. The space is filling fast, with Perplexity and in-house retrieval solutions from major model providers as the natural reference points, while enterprises need compliant, auditable data access rather than raw web scraping. Linkup's enterprise traction (KPMG as a named customer) and its angel roster from Datadog, Mistral, and Deel suggest it is targeting the developer and enterprise AI toolchain, not the consumer end.

Network

Sacha's network is anchored in the French tech ecosystem — his angel base at Linkup includes Olivier Pomel (Datadog), Arthur Mensch (Mistral), Alex Bouaziz and Shuo Wang (Deel), and Florian Douetteau (Dataiku), suggesting board-level and advisory proximity to some of Europe's most prominent founders. His time at Alan connects him to one of France's best-known growth-stage health tech companies, and his VC stint at Global Founders Capital gives him ties into the European early-stage investor community.

Olivier Pomel· Co-founder & CEO, Datadog
Arthur Mensch· Co-founder & CEO, Mistral
Alex Bouaziz· Co-founder & CEO, Deel
Florian Douetteau· Co-founder & CEO, Dataiku

How they likely show up

Built a functioning AI search engine in 24 hours without coding experience → ships fast by stitching tools together rather than waiting for technical dependencies.
Hybrid role type (Chief of Staff + GTM Lead) at a founding-stage company → comfortable holding strategy and execution simultaneously, unlikely to separate thinking from doing.
Active Medium and Substack writer on AI infrastructure and startup GTM → processes publicly, probably uses writing to sharpen thinking rather than just broadcast.
Career spans investment banking (PJT Partners), VC (Global Founders Capital), growth ops (Alan), and founding team (Linkup) → cross-functional by design, likely impatient with siloed specialists.
Shipped production integrations (Google Sheets, n8n node) as side projects while holding a C-suite-adjacent role → high agency, moves into gaps without being asked.
Mixed tenure shape across many companies before Linkup → possibly — built pattern recognition across industries early, now applying it with more focus.

Conversation tips

→ Reference the Linkup /fast launch specifically — he was part of the founding team that shipped it, and it's the company's sharpest public bet right now.
→ Ask about the 24-hour AI search engine build — it's a signal about how he approaches no-code/low-code tooling and he's clearly proud enough to write about it publicly.
→ He writes about agentic infrastructure and GTM strategy; come with a specific view on either, not a generic question — he'll engage more with someone who has a take.
→ His background jumps from banking to VC to growth to founding — he responds well to big-picture framing, but always test it against execution specifics.
→ Don't treat him as a pure operator: he co-authored a positioning essay on agentic infrastructure, so he thinks strategically about the market, not just the to-do list.

Toolbox

Openers

Open on Linkup /fast — he was part of the team that launched a sub-second web search API immediately after closing a $10M seed round; asking what they learned shipping that fast signals you've done your homework.
Reference the 24-hour AI search engine he built without coding experience (published on Medium) — it's a concrete demonstration of his 'ship first, ask permission later' instinct and opens a real conversation about how he thinks about no-code tooling.
Bring up 'Agentic Infrastructure: Why Access Is the Real Frontier' — he co-authored or discussed this piece; it's his clearest public statement of where Linkup sits in the AI stack and a natural entry point for a substantive market conversation.

Discovery questions

Linkup /fast is positioned as the most accurate sub-second web search API — how do you measure 'accuracy' in a way that enterprise buyers like KPMG actually trust?
You moved from Head of Growth at Alan to founding team at Linkup — what did the Alan experience teach you about GTM that you're applying differently in an API-first, developer-led product?
The angel roster reads like a who's who of French tech founders — how much of Linkup's early GTM relied on that network, and where does it stop being useful as you scale into the US?

Avoid

Don't pitch generic no-code or AI productivity tools without knowing the Linkup stack — he's already built integrations himself (Google Sheets, n8n) and will see through a surface-level demo.

Make it yours