Guillaume Roux-Romestaing
San Francisco, California — January 2026
We should own the stars.
"Some people call you the elite, I call you my base"
I'm not smart enough to understand the verticals I invest in. What the fuck do I know about Surface Aperture Radar (SAR), or the complexity of launching a company-builder system with long-running tasks and a memory system.
What I am smart at is people. I am incredibly good at pattern recognition and spotting the traits that create outliers. Because no extraordinary results come from ordinary people.
My thesis is people-driven. I back outliers.
And at pre-seed, that's practically all there is anyways.
I invest at the earliest stage, first cheque to seed, primarily in European founders. I have, however, and will continue backing Americans (the OG outliers) and other extraordinary founders from elsewhere. It so happens that my network is mostly Europeans, and I want to see them succeed most of all.
My edge is simple: I sit at the intersection of European technical excellence and Silicon Valley execution.
Europe produces exceptional technical talent but lacks the ecosystem density of San Francisco. Founders there are often underestimated, under-networked, and under-capitalized relative to their American counterparts.
Arbitraaaaaage.
I find those founders early, help them plug into US networks, and when the time is right, help them make the move stateside. My portfolio reflects this: 77% of my deals are Europeans, 18% Americans, 5% Other.
The London/Paris → SF corridors are where I'm strongest.
I pattern-match on a few traits that matter more than a pitch deck:
IQ — most important. Are they smart.
EQ / SQ — are they emotionally and socially intelligent.
Outlier behavior — Are they strange, unique, exceptional? I'm allergic to vanilla. The best founders are the ones who make you rethink your life with how different they think.
Contrarian conviction — They hold divergent views and don't bend to consensus. They've thought deeply enough to disagree with the default and can articulate why. I also like strong opinions, loosely held.
Intensity — Raw, relentless. Hustler. Accelerate or die.
Resilience — Have they dealt with tough situations in their life, and pushed through?
Leadership — Talent magnet. Can they federate a great team.
Founder-market fit — Are they uniquely positioned to solve the problem they're working on?
Confidence level — I weigh how well I actually know someone.
I'm sector-agnostic but have a strong pull toward:
I have a moral imperative to invest in anyone who unapologetically works to defend the West and its way of life. I'm proudly European, I'm proudly pro-American.
Space because it's cool. pew-pew.
We should own the stars.
This is my thesis as of January 2026. It will evolve. The core won't: bet on people, not markets. Help founders as best I can. Trust my own read.