Global Corporate Venturing Rising Stars Awards 2018: Bilal Djelassi

It has been almost three years since Bilal joined Orange Digital Ventures’ team as an analyst.

Since then, he has been up to a quick progression, having been promoted to associate after only a year, and having opened the unit’s London, UK, office as an investment associate in March 2016.

Launched in 2015 as the venture arm of France-based telecoms provider Orange, Orange Digital Ventures is a €150m ($180m) fund dedicated to early-stage investments in disruptive areas such as big data, enterprise software, fintech, insurtech, internet of things (IoT), artificial intelligence (AI) and data monetisation.

In his current role, Djelassi is in charge of finding new investment and corporate development opportunities in the UK, but also in Africa, following the unit’s launch of a €50m investment program dedicated to the continent in the past year.

Djelassi said: “This achievement gives a whole new meaning to my work. Being myself African, I am proud to be part of an initiative that can foster innovation in a dynamic region that only needs funding to thrive.”

Key events for the unit in 2017 included the appointment of former investment analyst Cynthia Mandjek to the role of late-stage venture capital analyst within Eurazeo, as reported by GCV in July. The Orange corporation also announced in April last year the launch of a startup accelerator in partnership with Facebook, for which the venture unit would provide fundraising advice and access to its investor network, with goals to support network infrastructure technology startups.

Orange Digital Ventures also closed a number of new investments last year. In February, near-field communication (NFC) technology developer Famoco raised €11m ($11.7m) in capital from a consortium that included Orange, SNCF Digital Ventures and BNP Paribas Developpement, joined by venture capital firm Idinvest Partners, which led the round.

The same month, digital and mobile-only bank Monzo cashed in a $24.5m in funding from Orange, accompanied by VC investors Thrive Capital and Passion Capital. The round was to be extended through a $3.2m equity crowdfunding campaign in mid-March, GCV reported at the time. In November, the UK-based startup also cashed in an extra £71m ($94m) through two different sources: a £60m Goodwater Capital-led series-D round early in the month, and an £11m ($14.6m) secondary round provided in part by founding employees. Monzo was reportedly valued at £280m ($373m) post-funding.

Finally, the unit chipped into a $75m series-D round for IoT and mobile-to-mobile (M2M) technology developer Actility alongside Cisco Investments, BNP Paribas, Swisscom, KNP, Foxconn, Inmarsat and Robert Bausch.

Other past deals included for instance SecBI, PayJoy, BandwithX, retail-focused platform Wynd and crowdfunding platform KissKissBankBank, recently sold to French bank La Banque Postale.

Since joining the unit in 2015, Djelassi was personally involved in the Monzo, Wynd, KissKissBankBank and Famoco deals, altogether totalling $180m in raised funding. He said: “I had tangible proof that our support to startups was essential when KissKissBankBank was bought by La Banque Postale, 18 months after our investment.”

Prior to joining Orange, the associate spent around nine months as analyst for private placement and mergers and acquisitions  advisory service Chausson Finance, which has helped raise €750m for around 200 companies to date.

Djelassi said: “As an investment banker specialised in venture transactions at Chausson, I had the opportunity to work closely with incredible entrepreneurs, but I ultimately felt frustrated to leave them once the funds were successfully raised.

“I wanted to see the other side of the table, and build long-term relationships, and that’s why I moved into CVC.

“Being embedded in corporate companies helps adding more value for entrepreneurs than just money. CVCs are platform investors by essence, leveraging their corporate assets to help startups grow.

“They have the ability to uniquely close the gap between corporate companies and startups, and I truly believe in this win-win model to support both sides the best I can.”

Prior to Chausson Finance, Djelassi had also spent a year as sales and marketing coordinator for the Boston-based Boston Language Institute.

Reflecting on his experience at Orange, he said: “Establishing an office in London was one of my biggest challenges, because it requires to be extremely sociable and flexible, so that you can create a bridge between one of the most active tech scenes and an international organisation like Orange.

“Maintaining an international network at a human scale is a daily challenge that needs a lot of technology tools for sure, but mostly teamwork and efficient communication processes that we have successfully put in place at Orange Digital Ventures across four cities: San Francisco, London, Paris and Dakar.”

Thinking of ways the industry could be improved, the associate said he thought CVCs could benefit from the development of “platform models” whereby venture funds build operational teams to support portfolio companies with services such as human resources (HR) or communication.

“This is unfortunately less common among CVCs,” he said. “This does not work in their favour, as most entrepreneurs still think of CVCs purely from a synergies point of view, where I think we can bring a lot more value than that.

“CVC units are international platforms by nature, and they should be able to leverage their assets and international presence to access the best collaboration opportunities worldwide.”

A graduate of the Paris Institute of Political Studies (Sciences Po) where he completed his MA in finance and strategy, Djelassi played American football as a linebacker for 10 years, having coached junior teams and co-founded his university team. He is also passionate about hip-hop music, dance and street art, and is always up for widening his horizons through worldwide travels.