In a third-floor office overlooking Paris’ famed Avenue de l’Opera, Raphaël Boulanger walked briskly through the meeting rooms, testing all systems, from microphones to WiFi reception.

For more than a year, the Assistant Vice President with Temasek’s Investment Group (EMEA) had been part of a team of three tussling with budgets, locations, contracts and renovations to ready the 650 sqm, two-storey space for its 2023 opening. On that late June afternoon, he was conducting the final checks.

The Paris office, Temasek’s third in Europe and 13th in the world, is part of the firm’s strategy to strengthen its global network and increase the resilience of its portfolio. Working with its London and Brussels offices, Paris will enhance Temasek’s ability to seize opportunities across the Europe, Middle East and Africa region.

“We’ll basically be one team in three offices, which means that any team member can travel to any one of our offices to be closer to whatever they happen to be working on, whether potential investment targets or sourcing talent. It's completely agnostic,” says Raphaël.

For the 30-year-old Paris native, back home after six years in London, bringing Temasek into his home country has been “incredible”. “I didn't realise how much work it would be, but it’s something I am very proud of.”

The French connection

When Raphaël first joined Temasek as an intern in 2016, the London office – the firm’s first in Europe – had been up for just a year and a half.

“The first day I came in was the day the British voted for Brexit. Everyone was shocked, and I tried to settle in my corner and read my staff book – because that’s what you do as a first-day intern,” he laughs.

Despite ripples resulting from the vote, Temasek was in growth mode. “It was diversifying its portfolio into Europe and other Western markets, so there was a high level of capital deployment by the team. It was a pretty exciting period to be there,” he recalls.

The region presented opportunities that would allow Temasek to leverage emerging trends, he points out. “Europe has been at the forefront of the energy transition for a number of decades, for instance, and is a key area for innovation and development of energy transition solutions. It’s also one of the regions where a lot of fundamental research is taking place.”

A year later, when Raphaël returned with Master’s degrees in Engineering and Business to formally begin his career as an investment associate for the European team, the office was expanding. “There were more hires, including at mid-level and senior level. Not long after my return, Nicolas Meier came in as a director, covering the German region, which we didn't have before. Soon after that, Uwe Krueger joined as head of Europe,” he recalls.

Between then and 2023, the London office would double in strength to 50 people.

“Now I work alongside colleagues of diverse backgrounds, nationalities, and focus. We have finance specialists, experts in geopolitics and microeconomics, and someone I used to sit next to was formerly a journalist. We have different investment interests. Yet, we were all under one roof, going in the same direction.”

Raphaël, himself, moved quickly from running analyses and drawing up charts to sourcing for opportunities and then, managing portfolios. A short posting to Singapore in 2019, to be part of a blockchain “pod”, reignited the “scientist” in him, and back in Europe, he corralled two colleagues to start a “hobby work stream” on quantum computing, “mapping the different technologies so we could keep an eye on developments and be ready to move quickly,” he says.

The opportunity came when Temasek started to formalise its investment strategy in disruptive technologies in 2020. In 2022, Raphaël moved to cover emerging technologies for the Europe region, with quantum computing as a large focus. “I spend a lot of time sourcing opportunities in the sector, visiting labs, benchmarking, talking to venture capital funds.” Last year, he was involved in the €100 million funding round led by Temasek for French startup PASQAL – believed to be the biggest private funding round for a quantum computer startup in Europe.

As the opportunities in the market grew, Temasek’s presence has grown in tandem. In 2020, it opened an office in Brussels to focus on institutional relationships within the EU, and shortly after, began planning for a third European location that would enhance its access to deal flow, partnership opportunities, and the talent pool across the region.

Paris ticked all the boxes, while also placing Temasek physically closer to its portfolio companies in the EU, and in 2022, Raphaël joined the team tasked with getting Temasek’s third European office up and running.

An eye on the future

Today, Raphaël regularly makes the two-hour train ride across the “chunnel” to London, moving fluidly between the two offices.

To him, that enlarged reach reflects Temasek’s constant push to encompass more sectors, markets, and companies at various maturity levels, and so remain a step ahead. It is what gives the firm its “differentiated DNA”, he says.

“With Temasek, I can help foster the innovation and business models that allow us to transform lives and revolutionise economies,” he says. “I am really looking forward to this new chapter in Europe.”