E558 | Omri Benayoun, Partech: Growth Equity in Europe

Welcome back to another episode of the EUVC Podcast, where we gather Europe’s venture family to share the stories, insights, and lessons that drive our ecosystem forward.

Today’s guest is Omri Benayoun, General Partner at Partech, one of Europe’s premier investment platforms. Since 2014, Omri has co-led Partech’s growth equity strategy, raising more than €1B across two funds and backing some of Europe’s most capital-efficient champions. With a career spanning government, corporate strategy, e-commerce, M&A, and growth investing, Omri brings a rare lens on what it takes to build resilient global tech leaders from Europe.

From rock climbing as a metaphor for measured risk-taking to the structural advantage of Europe’s “do more with less” DNA, this conversation covers Partech’s contrarian bet on bootstrapped scale-ups, the role of elite LPs, and why Europe’s complexity might be its greatest strength.

🎧 Here’s what’s covered:

• 01:34 Rock Climbing & Investing: Risk, fear, and why falling is part of the journey.

• 04:00 Omri’s Background: From government to e-commerce (Cdiscount), retail (Casino), and software (Dassault Systèmes).

• 10:00 Lessons from Dassault: Product roadmaps, customer listening, and why big M&A requires years of courtship.

• 14:00 Government Experience: Why investors and founders can’t afford to ignore policy anymore.

• 20:00 Launching Partech Growth: Filling the gap for European growth capital in 2014.

• 22:00 Fund II Strategy: Betting on bootstrapped, capital-efficient companies during the 2020 frenzy.

• 25:00 Defining Capital Efficiency: Rule of 40, ARPU per employee, and Europe’s structural advantage.

• 29:00 Case Study – EcoVadis: From bootstrapped ESG ratings leader to global scale.

• 33:00 Inside Partech: The “Greek city-states” model of seed, venture, growth, Africa, and impact strategies.

• 39:00 Efficiency vs. Profitability: Why founders must avoid the “dead zone” of low growth + breakeven.

• 41:00 Elite LPs Enter the Game: How Cambridge Associates, StepStone, and sovereigns now back European growth.

• 46:00 Europe on the Map: From founders settling early to chasing world-class scale.

• 50:00 Complexity as a Feature: Why regulatory fragmentation creates stronger survivors.

• 52:00 Partech’s Cohesion: A culture of numbers, engineers, and price sensitivity across geographies.