Sebastien de Halleux
About Sebastien de Halleux
Sebastien de Halleux is a technology entrepreneur and investor based in San Francisco. His Crunchbase bio describes a 20-year record of launching startups internationally. He holds a Master's degree in Civil and Environmental Engineering from Imperial College London and is a Henry Crown Fellow at the Aspen Institute.
He began in strategy and innovation roles at Booz Allen Hamilton and Nokia, then helped launch Glu Mobile, a mobile games company that IPO'ed in 2007. He co-founded Playfish and served as its COO. Electronic Arts acquired Playfish in 2009. He later became founding COO of Saildrone, which builds wind and solar powered ocean drones for planetary data collection. He also worked as Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Capricorn Investment Group.
His current roles are Founding General Partner at Graph Ventures, COO at Field AI, and co-founder and Chief Gaming Officer at Matchday. Field AI is an embodied AI company that builds robot autonomy models. Matchday is building a new type of game for football fans. Several sources describe Matchday as AI-powered sports simulation. He has served on the boards of Saildrone, Samasource, Vittana, UWC-USA, the Solar Fuel Institute and Trusted Family. His honors include the 2012 EA Emerging Leaders Award, the 2011 Tech 100 award and the 2010 TechFellow award. He also received the 2020 Ron Brown Excellence in Innovation Award and the 2018 US Department of Commerce Bronze Medal for the Saildrone and NOAA partnership.
Crunchbase lists 12 investments, 11 portfolio companies, 0 lead investments, 2 exits and 4 companies founded for him. Neither exit was an IPO. Crunchbase records no lead rounds, so founders should not assume he will set terms or lead a round.
Signal (NFX) lists 31 investments on record, with co-investors including Tim Draper, Tom Chi and Tim Chae. Tracxn, which tracks fewer deals, shows three dated rounds: Scanadu (seed, 2011), Sparkcentral (Series A, 2013) and Talent Works (seed, 2017). Data providers disagree on counts, and public records of his personal angel deals are incomplete. The EasyVC profile classes his recent angel activity as low because the latest deal it found was from 2017.
He is also a founding General Partner at Graph Ventures, a seed fund that launched in 2011 and has backed 300+ companies.
No dated list of his personal AI investments was found in public sources, so none are listed here. His AI exposure comes mainly from his operating roles. He is COO of Field AI, which builds foundation models for robot autonomy. He also co-founded Matchday, and at Saildrone he worked on a vision called The Quantified Planet, which combined autonomy, big data and AI/ML to study ocean and weather systems.
Rho's robotics angel list names him as a pre-seed investor in robotics and cites Regent and MightyFly as examples of his interest in mobility and automation. Rho gives no investment years. Founders building AI for robotics, autonomy, games or physical-world data are the most natural fit for his background.
Rho's angel guides describe his activity as pre-seed, seed and some Series A. The sectors it lists are robotics, games, climate tech, fintech and enterprise software. Tracxn shows his recorded investments are in the United States. Graph Ventures says it helps portfolio companies with fundraising, growth, product and international expansion, drawing on experience scaling companies in Latin America, Europe and Asia.
Signal (NFX) lists an investment range of $100K to $250K and a sweet spot of $150K. This is a third-party figure and not a statement from him, so confirm it directly. One directory says he prioritizes product quality and user delight over monetization. No first-party statement of his criteria was found.
- Blue Apron: meal-kit company in the Graph Ventures portfolio, as listed in his Crunchbase bio.
- Ipsy: beauty subscription company in the Graph Ventures portfolio, as listed in his Crunchbase bio.
- Envoy: workplace software company in the Graph Ventures portfolio, as listed in his Crunchbase bio.
- Dapper Labs: blockchain and digital collectibles company in the Graph Ventures portfolio, as listed in his Crunchbase bio.
- Scanadu: health technology company; Tracxn records his participation in its 2011 seed round.
- Sparkcentral: customer messaging software company; Tracxn records his participation in its 2013 Series A.
- Talent Works: Tracxn records his participation in its 2017 seed round.
- Regent and MightyFly: mobility and automation startups cited by Rho as examples of his investments; no dates found.
- crunchbase.com/person/sebastien-de-halleux
- signal.nfx.com/investors/sebastien-de-halleux
- rho.co/blog/angel-investors-for-gaming
- rho.co/blog/angel-investors-for-robotics
- tracxn.com/d/people/sebastien-de-halleux/__dRhtPN_XMjgy6ie1gb3iwkOWGmN
- easyvc.ai/investor/sebastien-de-halleux
- allamericanspeakers.com/speakers/389370/Sebastien-de-Halleux
- gamesbeatnext.com/speaker/sebastien-de-halleux
Investing activity
Sebastien de Halleux has made 12 investments according to Crunchbase across 11 portfolio companies, and has seen 2 exits and founded 4 companies.
Deals
Frequently asked questions about Sebastien de Halleux
Who is Sebastien de Halleux?
He is a Founding General Partner at Graph Ventures and a co-founder of Playfish and Matchday. He was founding COO of Saildrone and is now COO at Field AI. He lives in San Francisco.
What check size does Sebastien de Halleux write?
Signal (NFX) lists a range of $100K to $250K with a $150K sweet spot. That is a third-party listing and he has not published a check size in the sources we found.
What stage does Sebastien de Halleux invest in?
Rho's angel guides list pre-seed, seed and Series A. Crunchbase records no lead investments for him.
What sectors does Sebastien de Halleux back?
Rho lists robotics, games, climate tech, fintech and enterprise. His operating background covers mobile and social games, ocean data and robot autonomy.
Is Sebastien de Halleux a good fit for an AI founder?
He is most relevant to AI founders working on robotics, autonomy, games or physical-world data. He is COO of Field AI and co-founded Matchday. No public list of his personal AI angel deals was found.
How can founders contact Sebastien de Halleux?
His public channels are LinkedIn at linkedin.com/in/sdehalleux and X at @sebdeh. He is also reachable through Graph Ventures. A warm introduction from a shared contact is the usual route.
Is Sebastien de Halleux an angel investor?
Yes. Sebastien de Halleux invests personally as an angel and is Founding Partner at Graph Ventures. Crunchbase counts 12 investments and 2 exits.
Where is Sebastien de Halleux based?
Sebastien de Halleux is based in San Francisco, California, United States.
How can founders reach Sebastien de Halleux?
Founders on Lounge can see Sebastien de Halleux's contact details in AI Investor Contacts (paid plans), check for a warm introduction through members who worked with them under Warm Paths, and add Sebastien de Halleux to their Investor Pipeline to track the conversation.