Team
Operators who became investors.
A small team by design. Every person who sits on a portfolio board has built or scaled something themselves, and is accountable for the advice they give.
Louis Maingault
Founder & Executive Manager
Louis has built companies in fashion, technology and investment, and has led commercial organisations through periods of fast growth. He founded Pottier Invest to bring an operator’s judgement to early-stage investing in the sectors he has worked in directly.
His operating career began in marketplaces. At Uber Eats in Paris he grew a restaurant portfolio from 1,200 to 1,600 partners, managed a field sales team of ten, and ran marketing campaigns that lifted sales by fifteen percent. He went on to help launch and structure a new venture at Native, building its commercial department and supervising a product team, and later ran expansion at Beanstock — opening new cities with full profit-and-loss responsibility for the department and a team of ten.
Between those roles he served as a Lieutenant in the French Army, commanding a platoon of forty after officer training at Saint-Cyr and the Infantry School in Brittany. Since 2023 he has founded and operated his own ventures, including a direct-to-consumer fashion brand and a consumer fitness application.
He is a native French speaker, fluent in English (TOEIC 915/990), speaks Spanish at a professional level and has beginner Italian.
Experience
- 2023–Founder, Pottier Invest — Boston, Massachusetts
- 2023–Founder, consumer ventures in fashion e-commerce and fitness software
- 2022–2023Expansion Manager, Beanstock — Paris, France
- 2021–2022Lieutenant, French Army — Brittany, France
- 2020–2021Business Development Associate, Native — Paris, France
- 2018–2019Key Account Manager, Uber Eats — Paris, France
Education
- 2022MSc, Leadership and Command — Saint-Cyr Military Academy, France
- 2020MSc, Innovation and Entrepreneurship — ESCP Business School, Paris
- 2014Master’s, Entrepreneurship — Catholic University of Lyon, France
Marc Fournier
Principal — part-time
Marc Fournier brings more than twenty years of experience leading and advising technology-driven businesses across the food, agriculture and sports industries. He contributes directly to investment decisions, helps evaluate opportunities, and supports founders on governance, financial structuring and market expansion.
He was a founder before he was an investor, and he made the same crossing our companies make. He built Easy English, a language training company for French executives, and sold it to the market leader. He then spent five years in Silicon Valley launching e-commerce ventures, including 12degrees.com. In 2002 he co-founded Kangaroo Village, later sold to Société Générale.
He is a co-founder and managing partner of Serena, a European venture capital firm headquartered in Paris with approximately $1.2 billion under management. He has led dozens of exits and served on the boards of Sarenza, La Fourchette, Evaneos, Aramis, Aquarelle and RSI Video Technology, among others, as well as Nelixia, a Latin American natural ingredients producer, and Dune, a diving and adventure travel platform. His work spans Europe, the United States, the Gulf and Latin America.
He has taught entrepreneurship for more than twenty years at ESCP Business School, where he co-directs a Master’s programme in Entrepreneurship as an Affiliate Professor.
Education
- ESCPBusiness degree — ESCP Europe, Paris
- TuftsPolitical Science and International Relations — Tufts University, Massachusetts
Focus for the firm
- SourcingAccess to European founders preparing to enter the U.S. market
- DiligenceEvaluation of food, agriculture and sports technology opportunities
- GovernanceBoard practice and financial structuring for portfolio companies
Building the team
Roles we are hiring in Boston.
Principal
Sourcing and assessing opportunities, leading diligence, and working alongside founders to help portfolio companies execute.
Analyst
Market research, financial modelling and investment memoranda, plus deal screening and portfolio metrics.
Finance & compliance
Company accounting, tax and regulatory filings, and investment documentation, working with our outside professional advisers.
Portfolio operations
Hands-on support to portfolio companies between board meetings, and the day-to-day running of the Boston office.
Advisors
Operating partners.
We work with a small group of advisers and operating partners who bring specialised expertise in the sectors we invest in. They mentor founders, advise on operational problems, and give our portfolio companies access to experience we do not hold in-house.