Xavier Levesy

Xavier Levesy is a serial entrepreneur turned investor based in Lyon. Born in 1967 in Marseille, he was trained as an engineer at École Centrale de Marseille and the École Supérieure de Chimie de Marseille (1985–1990), and completed a DESS in business management at IAE Aix-en-Provence (1990–1991). Early in his career he worked in industry and consulting, including roles at Novexel (c. 1996–2000) and Alma Consulting Group (c. 2000–2004), before building his own companies in the innovation-financing space.

In 2006 he founded Dynergie, a Lyon consultancy specialising in innovation financing for SMEs (notably helping companies secure R&D tax credits / Crédit d'Impôt Recherche), reportedly launched with €10,000 of personal funds. He was later joined by his longtime associate Louis Veyret. In 2013 the two co-founded United Motion Ideas (UMI), a B2B innovation/market-testing platform that connects companies' innovation projects with expert reviewers. Levesy remains associated with the Dynergie group as a managing director/associate.

Capelia is the investment vehicle Levesy co-founded (dated 2008 on the firm's site; publicly launched around 2009) alongside Louis Veyret — both Dynergie shareholders — and Alexandre Paulet, a former Babou executive. The premise: let successful entrepreneurs act collectively as investors ("business angels") in the transmission and growth of established SMEs, contributing not just capital but networks, operational experience and board involvement. The firm's capital is described as 100% subscribed by entrepreneurs. Over more than 15 years Capelia has grown to a team of roughly 15–16 people (founding entrepreneurs, investment directors, plus business-management and ESG roles) and has raised a succession of funds, reaching its sixth vintage by 2024 with dozens of entrepreneur-subscribers.

• Backs mature, profitable SMEs/ETIs — explicitly "not startups" — in ownership-transition situations (transmission) or development/expansion capital.
• Uses classic LBO/OBO/MBO structures, taking majority or minority positions (roughly 20–80% stakes); returns are driven substantially by dividends on the acquired shares.
• Sector-agnostic, French-focused, historically weighted toward Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes but now investing nationally (Lyon, Lille, Paris/Île-de-France).
• Highly selective: the firm has described studying on the order of ~200 opportunities a year and completing only about two deals annually.
• Core differentiator is its entrepreneur-investor model — capital is subscribed by ~15–75 entrepreneurs (depending on the fund vintage) who provide hands-on skills, network access and board support to portfolio management teams; Capelia positions itself as an "involved but non-interfering" shareholder.