Cleo Ventures

About

Cleo Ventures is a Parisian seed fund launched in 2025 by Maxime Le Dantec (former Principal at Balderton, ex-CTO of convai) and Antoine Veret (former Partner at Breega, ex-COO of Green-Acres), which invests exclusively in companies built around AI: applications, infrastructure, research labs, and deeptech. The fund closed €30M in May 2026 with Otium Capital as the lead subscriber, and provides initial checks from €300K to €1M in pre-seed and seed, often before the first hire, primarily in Europe. Its unique mechanism: a Trailblazers Club of over 40 AI founders and operators, including Olivier Pailhes (co-founder of Aircall), Lucie Buisson (former CPO of Contentsquare), and Thomas Scialom (Llama, Meta), who hold carried interest in the fund and support the portfolio companies. Cleo follows Resonance, a vehicle backed by Otium with which the same team invested in MatX, DeepIP, Animaj, Metomic, and Fintool (acquired by Microsoft). French investments tracked under the Cleo brand, in seed in 2026: AMI Labs (Yann LeCun) and Linc. For an AI founder at the very beginning, Cleo combines a seed check and access to operators who have themselves scaled, interested in the outcome through their carried interest.

Key facts

Type

Venture Capital

Stages

Pre-Seed, Seed

Headquarters

France

Offices

Paris

Geographic focus

France, Europe

Founded

2025

Track record

• Portfolio companies: 2
• Total investments: 2
• Unicorns: 1

Notable investments

AMI Labs, Linc