Claire Benoist

Claire Benoist is a French private-equity and venture-capital finance executive. She began her career in controllership across the industry and services sectors before moving into private equity, where she spent roughly 16 years as Chief Financial Officer of management companies. Over that period she served as CFO of Montagu Private Equity, Korelya Capital, and Kepler Cheuvreux Invest — the source of the Korelya Capital contact details in the stub data.

At Korelya Capital — the €800M+ technology investment platform founded in 2016 by Fleur Pellerin (former French Minister for the Digital Economy), which backs European tech companies expanding into Asian markets (portfolio includes Bolt, Vestiaire Collective, Wallapop, Grover and others) — Benoist held the CFO role responsible for fund finance and operations rather than deal-making. Korelya's current team page now lists a different CFO (Véronique Gauduchon), consistent with Benoist having moved on.

Since 2022, Benoist has been CFO and General Secretary of Caravelle, a Paris-based, family-owned (Martel family) long-term shareholder founded in 1995 by Pierre-André Martel. Caravelle invests its own equity in French SMEs (roughly €50–300M turnover) to support their national and international development, with holdings such as Mayoly (pharmaceuticals), Visionix (visual-health technology), Kestrel Vision (packaging inspection) and Belambra (vacation clubs), and a consolidated staff of around 2,700 people.

She holds an MA from the University of Reading (UK) and an MBA from the University of Richmond (Virginia, USA).

• Important caveat: Public sources describe Benoist as a CFO / finance-and-operations executive, not as an angel investor or check-writing partner. The stub labels ("Angel Investors," "Seed Round") could not be verified, and no record of a personal angel-investing thesis or program was found.
• Her professional focus is the financial management, structuring, reporting and administration of investment vehicles (fund and management-company finance), spanning venture capital (Korelya) and private equity (Montagu), and now an evergreen family holding (Caravelle).
• The firms she has worked with invest as follows, for context:
• Caravelle: own-balance-sheet, long-term (evergreen) investment in profitable French SMEs; sectors include industry, healthcare/pharma, agri-food, services and tourism/hospitality.
• Korelya Capital: Series A through growth-stage technology investing, helping European startups scale into Asia.