Isabelle Canu is Head of Operations at coparion, a new VC fund with a volume 225m EUR, financed by the German Federal Government and KfW. coparion invests in fast growing innovative startups with tickets of 0.5 to 5m and alongside several financing rounds up to 10m EUR per company.

 

Isabelle has studied International Relations at Sciences Po in Paris and Florence and received her Ph.D. from the Ludwig-Maximilians-University in Munich. In all her jobs she has always been at the interface of business, finance, law and politics: e.g. at the IIC The New German Länder Industrial Investment Council, at the Federal Chancellery and at KfW. She has a profound knowledge in the field of start-ups, entrepreneurship, SME, SME-financing and venture capital. She is very experienced in the management of international projects where success is based on skills as a motivator, on excellent negotiation skills, on entrepreneurial spirit and on result-orientation.

 

Isabelle loves bringing the threads together in complex tasks and finding creative solutions with everyone involved. In all areas from life science to high-tech she enjoys discussing intensely with the founder teams and arguing with them about their ideas and business models. She enjoys assisting the startups growing in all strategic an organizational issues.

 

She works as a „conseillère du Commerce Extérieur de la France“ in a honorary capacity assisting the economic department of the French Embassy, French SMEs interested in the German market and young French interns or job seekers in Berlin.