Benjamin Kayser

Benjamin Kayser is a former French international rugby player and the co-founder of venture capital fund Teampact.ventures. 

Kayser played professional rugby for 16 years. He won 37 caps for the French national side and premiership titles with his club teams in England and France. Since retiring in 2019, he’s established himself as a popular pundit on English and French TV. 

Beyond sport, Kayser is also active in the investment world. After completing an Executive MBA at the University of Oxford’s Said Business School, he became one of the founding partners at Teampact.ventures. The firm invests in mission-driven start-ups with particular focus on cleantech, health and education. 

Kayser is an active adviser to the founders behind these start-ups. He believes elite sportspeople and entrepreneurs share common traits and challenges. Kayser uses his own experiences of high performance, handling stress and resilience to draw out transferable lessons. 

Teampact.ventures believes in inspirational founders. Alongside data-driven investment cases, Kayser therefore plays a crucial role in psychologically profiling individuals. He watches out for narcissistic or sociopathic tendencies that could jeopardise any venture’s success. 

Other prominent sportspeople are among Teampact.ventures’ backers. They include French footballers Raphael Varane and Gaetane Thiney and the rugby player Antonie Dupont. 

Professional sport continually offers new lessons in high performance as athletes and coaches search for those small winning gains. Benjamin Kayser understands that these tools apply beyond the field. The same individual traits and team cultures that breed sporting success will also reap rewards in business.