A pioneering investment firm helping companies of all sizes go beyond borders with global, digital and sustainable growth.
- Venture Capital & Private Equity
- Paris
- Visit website
- Founded in:
- 2007
- Headquarters:
- Paris
- Size:
- 51-200
employees
After over 20 years of entrepreneurial and industrial experience across the world, Mingpo Cai founded Cathay Capital in 2006, the first global private equity firm created by entrepreneurs for entrepreneurs. With 22 funds spanning the venture capital to private equity spectrum, the Cathay platform has 5B+ euros in assets under management and has made 230+ investments across Europe, Asia, North America, Latin America andAfrica. Cathay Capital aimsatconnecting entrepreneurs to local ecosystems around the globe to help them innovate and become leaders beyond their home markets. Utility is essential to the creation of long-term value and to the transition towards a sustainable economy. Driven by this conviction, Cathay Capital's team helps all stakeholders develop innovative yet responsible and impactful solutions within their sectors. With more than 130 staff members, including 26 partners, Cathay is based in Paris, Shanghai, Beijing, Munich, New York, San Francisco, Singapore and Shenzhen Mingpo sits on the board of directors of several Cathay Capital holdings and Cathay AfricInvest Innovation Ltd, an investment partnership which represents the first pan-African venture fund supporting entrepreneurs bringing innovative and inclusive technologies to Africa. He is a member of the World Economic Forum and graduated from China Europe International Business School (CEIBS) in Shanghai, and EMLYON Business School in France.
Fabien Wesse is a Partner of Cathay Capital, based in Paris.
Fabien joined Cathay Capital in 2010, after 10 years of private equity experience at Siparex Group, a French middle-market private equity firm with over €1B under management.
As a seasoned French low- and mid-market private equity investor, Fabien has participated in over 15 transactions, in control and non-control capacities, including succession, growth capital and LBO investments.
These transactions covered a broad range of sectors as diverse as construction, building materials, industrial goods, agri-business, textile, logistics, specialty retail, packaging, and electronics mail order. Fabien has been an active participant of the board of all the companies invested.
Prior to Siparex, Fabien worked in the CFO's office, in Switzerland, of a computer services company.
Fabien is a graduate of the University of Paris Dauphine.
Jérémie is a Partner of Cathay Capital Private Equity, based in Paris. Jérémie joined Cathay Capital in December 2016, having previously worked for 2 years at Meeschaert Capital Partners, a mid-market private equity fund backed by Meeschaert Group, a French independant family office and asset management company with €6.0bn AUM. Prior to Meeschaert, Jérémie made private equity investments for seven years in Western Europe at Argos Wityu, a pan-European investment fund with more than 1bn€ of assets under management. His responsibilities included the origination, execution, monitoring and exit of transactions in the mid-market. He started his career within the M&A team of Sagem Défense Sécurité at Safran Group. At Cathay he is in charge of investment opportunities in the business and digital services space. Jérémie holds a Master Degree from in Business Administration from Sciences Po Paris and a Master Degree in Business Administration from HEC Paris.
Denis is Co-founder and Managing Partner of Cathay Innovation, Cathay Capital's Venture Capital practice. Prior to Cathay, he was at Iris Capital where he managed the international activities of the Orange/Publicis fund. He has also been the Head of Corporate Venture at Orange Telecom, Managing Director at Innovacom, and has worked as an Officer at the French Treasury Department, in charge of all the Sovereign holdings in Aerospace, Defense, and Media companies. Denis has pioneered a unique way to invest in technology, leveraging the traditional playbook of venture capital investing, but also integrating the larger social evolutions at play, analyzing the competitive landscape at a fully global level, and integrating in the insights of numerous Fortune 500 companies committed in his ecosystem in the due diligence process. He believes that this fosters deeper relationships with entrepreneurs from the start and helps them lead faster and further on the global stage. Denis has a deep technical background and started as a Researcher in the laboratories of Orange Telecom, working on semiconductor quantum dots. He holds a Ph.D. in solid state Physics, is a graduate of Ecole Normale Supérieure, and is an engineer of Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Télécommunications.
Jacky is a Managing Partner of Cathay Innovation, based in Paris. He benefits from over 17 years of advisory and operational experience in Telecommunications, Media and Technology, with particular expertise in venture capital and corporate development. Prior to joining Cathay, Jacky was a Venture Partner with Iris Capital in Israel from 2012 to 2015. In this role, he was responsible for identifying investment opportunities and monitoring local portfolio companies. In addition, Jacky held previous roles heading the Corporate Development activity for Orange startups program, was the Vice President for Corporate Development at Orange Digital from 2012 to 2013 and Investment Director at Orange Capital (now Iris Capital) from 2011 to 2012. He was also a Business Development & Sales Director for the mobile division of SanDisk from 2006 to 2011 and worked as a Corporate and Business Development Director at GFI in Spain from 2003 to 2006. He started his career as part of the management team of Fantine Group (now Aviv Ventures). Jacky holds a MBA from Boston University and a degree in Business Administration from Madrid Business School.
About Cathay Capital Group:
Founded in 2007, Cathay Capital Group is a global investment firm supporting companies at all stages throughout Europe, North America, Asia, Latam and Africa. Today, we manage nearly $4.5B in assets and have completed over 190 buyouts, growth and venture capital investments including breakout companies such as Pinduoduo (NASDAQ: PDD), Ledger, Chime Bank, Glovo (acquired by Delivery Hero), Wallbox (NYSE: WBX), Drivy (Getaround), Juliette has a gun, AD Education, Moncler (OTCMKTS:MONRF) and many more. Our global team of 130+ spans offices across Paris, New York, Shanghai, Munich, San Francisco, Beijing and Singapore.
By combining Cathay Capital Private Equity, Cathay Innovation (venture capital) and an extensive ecosystem of leading corporate partners and LPs, our global platform bridges continents and connects people – from investors, entrepreneurs, management teams to Fortune500 executives – to share invaluable industry knowledge, networks and tools to help companies scale while navigating the opportunities of globalization and digitization. We believe in investing with purpose, in companies that can not only lead markets, but have a positive impact – working towards the sustainable transformation of industries and societies.
Cathay Innovation is a global venture capital partnership, created in affiliation with Cathay Capital. It was founded around the shared conviction that supporting innovation entrepreneurs by providing them with a platform bridging 3 continents – North America, Europe and China – constitutes a particularly powerful value-creation strategy. As a multi-stage fund, Cathay Innovation partners with visionary entrepreneurs, committed to the sustainable transformation of the world through innovation and technology. Such transformation is accelerated by leveraging Cathay Capital extensive network with corporates and solid experience in operational excellence. Cathay Innovation has offices in San Francisco, Paris, Beijing, Shanghai and Singapore.
To learn more, please visit www.cathayinnovation.com or follow us on Twitter @Cathayinnov.
Cathay Capital Group is a global investment platform specialized in cross-border development with a focus on Northern America, Asia, Europe and Africa. The group identifies investment opportunities with the potential to impact the world and accompanies portfolio companies in their international expansion through its ecosystem of partners and the local expertise of its close to 100 employees based in Paris, Shanghai, Beijing, New York, San Francisco, Munich, Tel Aviv and Singapore. Founded in 2007, the Group has completed over 140 buyouts, growth and venture capital investments and manages €3.5 billion in assets, distributed in a range of investment strategies and vehicles.
For more information, please visit www.cathay.fr
Shanghai, China – June 9, 2020 - Sanofi announced today a strategic investment in Cathay Innovation, a global venture capital fund created to support entrepreneurs engaged in the sustainable transformation of the world through innovation and technology.
Through this partnership, Sanofi will strengthen its connection to innovative global ecosystems in healthcare, particularly in China, which is the second largest market of the group and a strategic priority in terms of development and innovation.
“As a top priority country for Sanofi, China has impressed us with its dynamic market development and fast progress in digital innovations, demonstrating the potential of becoming a pioneer in digitalized economy,” said Olivier Charmeil, Executive Vice President, Head of General Medicines at Sanofi. “In this context, our strategic partnership with Cathay Innovation will help us access the latest innovations in healthcare technologies, and ultimately translate these into real benefits for the Chinese healthcare system, and people in China and around the world. This partnership marks an important milestone towards our ambition of becoming a leading innovation driver and demonstrates our commitment to contributing to a strong economy of China.”
By leveraging diversified expertise and capabilities of different industries, Cathay Innovation built a unique platform where the disruptive start-ups and industry leaders such as Sanofi can find each otherand combine their complementary strengths to create new transformative innovations for the society.
Through Sanofi's strong expertise in healthcare and through Cathay Innovation’s global platform, entrepreneurs will benefit from this compelling approach that bridges geographies and industries, to improve their innovations and accelerate their development.
“Passionate about improving lives of patients, we are pleased to collaborate with Cathay Innovation and leverage their experience in investment and entrepreneur selection. This strategic partnership will support us on our journey to become a key innovation driver in China, as well as offer us a new way to engage the dynamic innovation ecosystem of health tech start-ups in China,” said Pius S. Hornstein, PhD, General Manager General Medicines and Country Lead, Sanofi China. “When our deep expertise in healthcare meets their novel ideas, we are confident that we can bring more innovative and
meaningful solutions which will transform healthcare and bring real benefits to people in China and across the globe.”
“Building on our strength of identifying visionary entrepreneurs that are inventing the fourth industrial revolution, we are convinced that we will develop a partnership of exceptional quality with Sanofi. We will work closely to leverage new emerging health trends by collaborating with the most promising start-ups in health sector,” said Mingpo Cai, Founder and President of Cathay Capital. “We are more than happy to provide Sanofi with the support of the entire Cathay Capital group to drive transformative innovations in the evolving healthcare ecosystem in China and globally.”
Sanofi has been active in incubation of promising healthcare solutions in the recent years. The Innovation Hub Sanofi established two years ago is now an important accelerator to help local start- ups bring innovative ideas into life.
By accelerating introduction of innovative medicines and vaccines and driving digital innovations, Sanofi is committed to making a real difference to the lives of the Chinese people.
May 14th 2020 - Cathay Capital announces that it has raised €1.3 billion to support entrepreneurs, following the final closing of the €800 million Midcap II fund and the achievement of the €500 million target for Cathay Innovation II.
Those two investment vehicles are operational and will enable Cathay's teams to best support start-ups (for Cathay Innovation II) as well as SMEs and ETIs (for Midcap II), helping them to finance and implement their projects.
These two funds are global and will invest locally in companies in the geographical areas where Cathay operates, namely Europe (mainly France, Germany and Spain), Asia (China but also South East Asia via the group's new office in Singapore), and North America.
The teams associated with these two funds will invest in sectors that present significant development opportunities and stand out for their sustainable growth potential, such as healthcare, high-tech industry, new modes of consumption, education and digital services.
Specifically, Cathay Innovation II will continue to support the digital transformation and the industrial revolution induced by artificial intelligence, with major and cross-cutting applications for retail, fintech, healthcare, mobility and energy.
Cathay Innovation II has recently been selected by both the French Ministry of Economy and Finance and the French Ministry of Digital Economy, as one of the few funds qualified for their involvement in financing French technology companies, and more particularly in supporting start-ups in their industrial and commercial development in the scale-up phase.
These two vehicles are in line with their previous vintages and mark a new stage in the development of the Cathay platform, with a significant increase in means made available to entrepreneurs for each of the two strategies (from €500m for Midcap I to €800m for Midcap II; and from €287m to over €500m for Cathay Innovation II).
The raising of these two funds was made possible by the renewed confidence of Cathay's historical investors, and by the arrival of new partners attracted by Cathay's values and achievements, notably international institutional investors.
