Emerging Leaders Q&A – Antoine Delafargue, TCNV

Girish Nadkarni, president of Total Carbon Neutrality Ventures (TCNV), a corporate venture capital (CVC) unit for France-based oil and gas producer Total, said of Antoine Delafargue: “Antoine is a senior investment professional and the chief technology officer (CTO) for TCNV.

“In addition to leading deals, Antoine acts as the first line of defence in evaluating emerging technologies. He brings a broad as well as deep knowledge of a wide range of technologies. In addition, he has excellent deal sense and has led a number of investments and serves as a board adviser on many companies.”

1. First, just give us a quick overview of who you work for, what you do, and how long you have been doing it.

I work for Total Carbon Neutrality Ventures, the venture capital arm of European energy giant Total, focused on the energy transition. I am a managing director (MD), and also CTO for the team. This is my first experience in a CVC unit. I joined the team in January 2017.

2. What attracted you to CVC?

It was a very personal decision to join Total’s CVC team. I had to bend a bit the arms of the HR people to move from being the head of petrophysics, in charge of rock analysis labs and expertise teams, to become an investor in another Branch of the Group. In the end, the change was well accepted, perhaps because the respective managers could sense my keen interest in startups, and wide-ranging curiosity in all matters technical.

I have always been interested in startups, and I actually created a small business aside from my work at Total, in underwater systems engineering. Going through fundraising, embarking partners to design and build something quite new (the smallest ever cruise submarine) proved very exciting, so I started rationalizing that I should merge my day job at Total and night job on my other projects into a more streamlined life with a single day job at Total in venture capital…

3. What have been your greatest successes at your unit?

I am very proud of the investment I led in the team (Elroy air in autonomous logistics, Otonohm in battery management systems technologies, Hyzon motors in hydrogen-powered transport). All the companies are doing great, although the investment was made too recently to claim an exit yet.

And also of the support, I could bring as a CTO to other investment managers, giving them another point of view.

But perhaps the greatest satisfaction I have found in this job comes from the specific nature of CVC: trying to assess synergies we could generate by investing, and compare them with the purely financial attractiveness of investment opportunities. This exercise can be very subtle and calls for a wide range of skills and experience. ability to help our companies and at the same time stimulate innovation within Total by exchanging with both the startups and our colleagues on their strategic roadmaps, on certain startups, or on projects they could pursue with our portfolio companies.

4. What have been your biggest challenges?

Maintaining focus, given our wide investment perimeter, in a job that is fundamentally opportunistic.

5. What is your main professional ambition for the future?

I would like to polish my CVC experience and skills and be more involved in Total’s overall strategy in the new low carbon businesses.

6. What do you think all CVCs could do better to make it a stronger industry?

I would like to polish my CVC experience and skills and be more involved in Total’s overall strategy in the new low carbon businesses.

7. What are some of your corporate parent’s technology needs and corporate strategy amid the pandemic, as well as your CVC unit’s pain points?

The pandemic has not affected the momentum of the energy transition. If anything, public measures undertaken to support the economy have strengthened it. Our parent company has a big task ahead: to become a major player in renewable electricity and energy, and lower the emissions of its historical Oil & gas activities. Our unit contributes to the technology, business and culture shifts Total needs to embrace to achieve these goals. The main pain point we are facing is the fact that VC has not yet proven it can be profitable in the cleantech space.

8. And, finally, for colour, what did you do prior to CVC or in your spare time?

I built a submarine, and test dove it multiple days, as part of a project I had been toying with for many years. I was also trained Marine Commando, one of the most selective special forces units in the armed forces.