Denis Barrier

Denis is co-founder and CEO of Cathay Innovation. He is also a Managing Partner of Cathay Capital.

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.