Romain Niccoli
About Romain Niccoli
Romain Niccoli studied at MINES ParisTech. In his own speaker bio for Tech Rocks Summit 2020, he says he spent five years at Microsoft in Seattle working on Windows development. He then moved back to Paris and co-founded Criteo in 2005 with Jean-Baptiste Rudelle and Franck Le Ouay.
At Criteo he worked for 12 years, mostly as CTO and also as CPO. He says he saw the company grow from its early days to three years after its Nasdaq IPO. In early 2017 he left to start Less, which merged into BlaBlaCar in 2018.
In 2019 he co-founded Pigment, a business planning software company, where he is co-CEO. Crunchbase also lists him as a partner at Axeleo.
Niccoli says he has invested in several startups as a business angel alongside running Pigment. PitchBook lists 13 investments and one exit. Crunchbase lists 15, and Tracxn lists 12. The counts differ because each database tracks different deals.
His earliest recorded angel round is HrFlow.ai (then called Riminder) in 2018. Other deals recorded in PitchBook, Nordic9 or NFX Signal include Artifakt and Pubstack (2019), Fifty (2019), Episto (2021), Primo and Dust (2023), Tamtam, Altertable and Delos (2025), and Dialog (2025). He often invests alongside other French founders and funds, including Kima Ventures, Elaia and Xavier Niel.
On the Lounge deals desk, Niccoli appears in two recent AI rounds. The first is the HrFlow.ai Seed of $7M in April 2026. He had also invested in the company's 2018 angel round, which TechCrunch covered as an AI recruitment service. The second is the BottleCap AI Seed of $7.5M in January 2026, led by 20VC. BottleCap AI is a Czech company founded by Jaroslav Beck, Tomas Mikolov and David Herel. Dust is also an AI product company in his portfolio.
NFX Signal ranks him in Seed and Pre-seed for AI, developer tools, HR tech, SMB software and fintech. Tracxn lists France and the Czech Republic as his main investment locations, with enterprise applications and high tech as top sectors.
NFX Signal lists an investment range of $5K to $50K and a typical check of $25K. These figures come from a third-party profile, not a statement from Niccoli. We found no public statement from him about what he looks for in a pitch.
- HrFlow.ai: AI infrastructure for recruiting and HR data. Angel round in 2018 and Seed in April 2026.
- BottleCap AI: Czech AI company building language models. Seed round in January 2026.
- Dust: AI assistant platform for teams. Seed round in 2023.
- Primo: seed investor in April 2023, per PitchBook.
- Tamtam: seed investor in 2025.
- Altertable: seed investor in June 2025.
- Dialog: seed investor in November 2025, per NFX Signal.
- events.tech.rocks/e/summit-2020/speaker/c275ca91-c61d-eb11-9fb4-0003ff
- signal.nfx.com/investors/romain-niccoli
- crunchbase.com/person/romain-niccoli
- x.com/romain_n?lang=en
- pitchbook.com/profiles/investor/229079-71
- tracxn.com/d/people/romain-niccoli/__QprjyyFP9bhvXePXt_m9bxsJofygAYzV1
- tracxn.com/d/people/romain-niccoli/__nU4o3XFrW3vT475PbfQeGBLm9QVj8AgU2
- startupintros.com/news/2026-01-29-bottlecap-ai-seed
Investing activity
Romain Niccoli appears in 2 AI deals tracked by the Lounge deals desk. The rounds are mostly Seed, with a median round size of $8M. The most recent are HrFlow.ai (Seed, $7M, Apr 2026) and BottleCap AI (Seed, $7.5M, Jan 2026).
Romain Niccoli most often invests alongside Xavier Niel, EmergingTech Ventures, 115K and Sophie Serratrice, and the companies they back on Lounge are mostly in AI.
Deals
Frequently asked questions about Romain Niccoli
Who is Romain Niccoli?
He is a co-founder of Criteo, where he was CTO, and of Pigment, where he is co-CEO. He also co-founded Less, which merged into BlaBlaCar in 2018. He invests as an angel in Paris.
What AI startups has Romain Niccoli invested in?
Recent AI rounds include HrFlow.ai (Seed, $7M, April 2026) and BottleCap AI (Seed, $7.5M, January 2026). He also invested in Dust.
What check size does Romain Niccoli write?
NFX Signal lists a range of $5K to $50K with a $25K typical check. This is a third-party estimate, and he has not published a check size himself.
What stage does Romain Niccoli invest in?
His recorded deals are mostly pre-seed and seed rounds. NFX Signal ranks him for both stages.
Does Romain Niccoli invest outside France?
Yes. Tracxn lists France and the Czech Republic as his main locations, and BottleCap AI is a Czech company.
How can founders contact Romain Niccoli?
His public profiles are LinkedIn and X (@romain_n). He has not published a personal investing site or an email address for pitches.
Is Romain Niccoli an angel investor?
Yes. Romain Niccoli invests personally as an angel.
What AI companies has Romain Niccoli invested in?
Romain Niccoli's AI investments include HrFlow.ai and BottleCap AI. The 2 rounds on Lounge are listed on this page with amounts, dates and co-investors.
What stage does Romain Niccoli invest at?
In the rounds tracked on Lounge, Romain Niccoli has invested at Seed, with a median round of $8M.
Who does Romain Niccoli co-invest with?
Romain Niccoli's most frequent co-investors on Lounge are Xavier Niel (2 deals), EmergingTech Ventures (1 deal), 115K (1 deal), Sophie Serratrice (1 deal) and Jean-Baptiste Rudelle (1 deal).