Marie Brayer

Tech, and solving complex problems Lover. Reason why started my carrier as software developer (was a very pretty enthusiastic one!). Until a turning point in my life: a conference held by the founder of Spartoo, who was giving a passionate testimony of his journey as a start-up founder. Immediately thought  “This, is what I was looking for all along”!

Spent a year at HEC, learning a bit about business. Then co-founded a software start-up, worked as a freelance at night to pay rent, and ended up joining the rest of the team in Singapore, developing our product’s MVP and selling a POC to one of the main bio-imaging labs over there. Realized one year later that the other founders and I had different priorities, put an end to our seed round, and came back to Paris.

Back in France, got hired by Christophe Chausson whose pioneer M&A boutique raised about a billion euros for startups based on one key principle: it’s all about the story. So, learned a great deal about storytelling, business modeling, and how to sell a vision.

Re-Started as an analyst & quickly moved up to become associate and eventually director, raising over 20m€ for my clients in 2016 as a result.

Joined Serena in 2016, after it has invested in one of my clients (Habiteo). Was having tea with Marc Fournier, managing partner, and was asked if I’d be interested in joining the “ dark ” side of VC.  Always been impressed by Serena’s entrepreneur-friendly spirit and dedication to understanding tech in-depth, so did not hesitate very long 😉