The Guillaume Houzé family office: Motier Ventures

The French dynasty of retailers

The Houze family is the little-known family behind French luxury retailer Galeries Lafayette. The company was founded in 1894 by Théophile Bader and Alphonse Kahn. Today, the company is no longer just associated with its famous store on Boulevard Haussmann in the 9th arrondissement of Paris but is recognized as a major player in the retail industry. It has 290 stores, 8,500 employees, a turnover of 4.5 billion dollars, and is still entirely family-owned. Since 2005, members of the Houze family have served as CEOs. Philippe Houzé acts as Vice Chairman, while his sons Nicolas and Guillaume serve the company as Executive Chairman and member of the Executive Board. Guillaume Houzé, in particular, is a very active investor in the venture capital and private equity scene. To this end, he founded the Guillaume Houzé Family Office, Motier Ventures.

The investment focus of Motier Ventures

Motier Ventures was founded in 2021 and is headquartered in Paris. It oversees the investments in Tech start-ups made by the owners of the Galeries Lafayette Group. In 2024 it was one of the most active family offices that invested in Start-up. So far it made 21 investments. Motier Ventures invests up to €300,000 as a business angel in the early stages and up to €3 million in subsequent rounds. It especially focuses on Commerce, FinTech, CreativeTech, Consumer & Gaming, Infra & Tooling as well as Blockchain and Artificial intelligence. This year the Guillaume Houzé Family Office invested mainly in AI and blockchain but also advertising and publishing companies. The latest investments include Vibe.co, Holistic AI, Flex AI or Mistral.

Picture source: via Amin Zabardast Unsplash