Denis Barrier

Denis is Managing Partner of Cathay Capital, Co-founder and CEO of Cathay Innovation. Before, he managed the international activities of the Orange/Publicis fund, based in San Francisco. He has been the Head of Corporate Venture at Orange Telecom, and a Managing Director at Innovacom Venture. He has also 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, integrating the usual playbook of venture capital investing, but also leveraging his vision about the large social evolutions happening globally, taking into account the contribution towards sustainability from startups, analyzing the competitive landscape at a full global level, and integrating in the due diligence process the insights of numerous Fortune 500 companies committed in his ecosystem.

He believes that this fosters deeper relationships with entrepreneurs from the start, and helps them to lead faster and further. Denis has a technical background and started as a Researcher in the laboratories of Orange Telecom, working mainly 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 Telecommunications.