Concept Deck · August 2026 · Internal

NEXUS
VAUD

The curated capital-matching platform for the Arc Lémanique's research economy.

Prepared forThibault Michel & Andrea Edelman
StatusPre-business-plan working session
PurposeFounder alignment — not a capital raise
Begin

01 — The Insight

The gap is not
talent.

Vaud is one of Europe's densest concentrations of deep-tech research — EPFL, UNIL, EHL, and a steady stream of post-doc spinouts.

Geneva absorbs the region's investor attention and private-banking capital. Lausanne-side founders are excellent at science and weak at fundraising process — and largely invisible to the capital that already sits one lake away.

It is packaging, visibility, and trust.

02 — The Problem, Two Sides

Both sides are underserved
by the same gap.

Project Owners

(academics, post-docs, and early founders)

  • Don't know how to package a venture for investors.
  • Don't have warm introductions.
  • Can't afford a boutique advisory retainer.

Investors

(family offices, business angels, and small funds)

  • Want regional deal flow but lack an efficient, pre-vetted channel into the EPFL/UNIL/EHL ecosystem.
  • Deals arrive unpackaged, unverified, and inconsistently.

Neither side will fix it alone.

03 — The Concept

A curated marketplace,
monetized on both sides.

Connecting Vaud-region projects to investors.

Project Owners

(pay to be listed and professionally packaged)

NEXUS VAUD

(the curation and matching layer)

Investors

(portfolio-level visibility across pre-vetted regional deal flow, at no cost to browse)

04 — How It Works

Five steps, one
continuous line.

  1. 01

    List

    (owner submits; AI packages and pre-diligences)

  2. 02

    Curate

    (team reviews, verifies, ranks readiness)

  3. 03

    Expose

    (investors access portfolio by sector and stage)

  4. 04

    Match

    (interest triggers warm, human introduction)

  5. 05

    Close

    (success fee only when capital moves)

For founders — structured support from day one.

For investors — a consistently prepared, pre-vetted pipeline.

For NEXUS VAUD — revenue earned only when capital actually moves.

05 — Revenue Model

Three tiers, one
real engine.

  1. 03

    Success Fee

    (a percentage of capital raised when an investor funds a listed project — the real revenue engine)

  2. 02

    Subscription

    (~CHF 20/month per active listing — covers visibility and hosting, and funds baseline operating costs)

  3. 01

    Listing Fee

    (~CHF 100 per project, covering onboarding and packaging)

Year 1 Estimate

CHF 300,000CHF 600,000

(depending on deal flow quality and close rate)

The pyramid shows the order a project moves through — listing, then subscription, then close. It is not a scale drawing of each line's contribution.

06 — Why This Is an Agentic Company

A virtual back office,
not a headcount problem.

The entire operational backbone runs on Trinity Architecture — the same agent-native design philosophy behind Andrea's other ventures.

The Virtual Back Office

(intake, packaging, first-pass scoring, CRM, investor matching, reporting)

All of it runs through custom Trinity-based agents modeled on b/sales and b/books.

Lean Cost Structure

(two-to-three people, ten-person output)

NEXUS VAUD can operate at a two-to-three-person cost structure while doing the work of a ten-person boutique.

Humans Where It Counts

(trust, judgment, and closing)

Reserved for the things AI cannot replace.

07 — The Team

Three people,
three registers.

01

Thibault Michel

(M&A lawyer — cross-border private equity transactions, EHL background)

Brings deal structuring expertise, investor relationships, and the credibility to sit across the table from family offices and funds.

02

Marta Prieto

(operations and executive assistant)

Former private-aviation flight attendant and schoolteacher, completing a BA in Psychology. Brings the human warmth and organizational discipline the AI layer cannot replace, and is transitioning out of aviation for health and lifestyle reasons.

03

Andrea Edelman

(builds the agentic software layer — Trinity Architecture)

Builds and runs the operational stack. Compensation structured as reduced rent plus a minority (junior) equity stake — sweat equity for infrastructure, not a salaried role.

08 — Why This Is Hard, and Why We Win Anyway

Arriving with a portfolio,
not an empty shelf.

The Challenge

Cold Start

Two-sided marketplaces are notoriously difficult to cold-start — investors want deal flow before it exists, projects want investors before there's an audience.

Our Answer

Seed the Supply Side First

Andrea's tech-scouting reach and Thibault's existing PE network let us hand-curate the first 10–20 projects before opening investor access — arriving with a real portfolio on day one.

The Moat

Trust × Near-Zero Marginal Cost

The moat is not the marketplace idea itself. It is Thibault's trust and closing ability combined with Trinity's near-zero marginal cost of running the operational side.

09 — Market Opportunity

Structurally underserved,
one train stop away.

Vaud hosts one of the highest concentrations of research institutions per capita in Europe: EPFL, UNIL, EHL, CHUV, and a growing post-doc and spinout pipeline.

Geneva remains the region's default capital hub — Vaud-based founders are structurally underserved despite being one train stop away.

4+

Research Institutions

(EPFL, UNIL, EHL, CHUV — all within the Vaud canton)

CHF 300K

Year 1 Revenue Floor

(conservative estimate as the investor network compounds)

CHF 600K

Year 1 Revenue Ceiling

(realistic upper estimate, scaling with listing volume and close rate)

10 — Why Now, Why Us

The tooling exists now.
It did not before.

The Tooling Exists Now

(not eighteen months ago)

The agentic tooling to run a lean, high-leverage operation like this did not exist eighteen months ago. It exists now.

An Unusually Well-Matched Pair

(law × agentic software)

Cross-border private equity legal expertise paired with production-grade agentic software — a combination neither partner could execute alone.

Self-Funded, Low-Burn

(prove the model, then scale it)

This is a self-funded, low-burn venture built to prove the model before scaling it — not a capital-raise pitch.

11 — Go-to-Market, Phase 1

Lausanne first.
Deliberately not Geneva.

  1. 01

    Geography

    (Lausanne and the Vaud canton first)

    Deliberately not competing head-on with Geneva's established finance ecosystem.

  2. 02

    Pipeline

    (direct outreach)

    EPFL and UNIL tech transfer offices, EHL entrepreneurship programs, and post-doc networks.

  3. 03

    Structure

    (lean shared office near Renens)

    Sized for a founding team of four.

  4. 04

    Milestone

    (within the initial operating period)

    First 10 curated listings and first investor match.

12 — Open Questions & Next Steps

Align first.
Then write the plan.

This deck exists to align Thibault and Andrea before writing the formal business plan — not to raise capital or convince a third party.

Decisions Still to Be Made

  1. Legal entity structure and jurisdiction
  2. Equity split and formal terms for Andrea's junior shares
  3. Final brand name and positioning
  4. The first 10–20 projects to approach for launch inventory

Immediate Next Step

Agree on structure and greenlight Phase 1 build of the Trinity-based operating stack.

This is an internal alignment document.
The next artifact is the formal business plan.