We had the privilege of getting involved with Maxime and his team pre-launch, when we were invited to participate in their small initial pre-seed round. We met Max several years before through Pierre Valade (founder of our portfolio companies Sunrise and Jumbo). We considered an investment in Max’s prior company, Jour, but we ended up not working together at the time. However, we have always been impressed by Max’s intense focus, product vision, elegant taste, and practical approach to building a business. When the time came to work together on Beside, we couldn’t pass up on the opportunity.

The vision of Beside is to give all professionals AI superpowers. Most of the innovation that has taken place for end users has benefited the traditional tech worker. These are products that are widely used today by those in tech, from call recorders like Granola and Fathom, to copilots for sales, engineering, or product teams. However, Beside is the first AI productivity product that is tuned specifically to mass market end users, both as individuals and as teams. Among their 20,000+ customers include small business owners, realtors, tradespeople, and venture capitalists like me.

Congrats to the team on their public launch and on their $32M series A from EQT and Index. Excited for the road ahead!