Ophiliam & Cie

The two founders, Thierry Gisserot and Xavier Thoumieux, share the roles of Co-CEO and control investment strategy and policy jointly. Olivier Serin and Maxime Deflou, the two additional partners, execute at the portfolio level, with Serin running Groupe Funecap day to day and Deflou heading the infrastructure division. All four partners decide acquisitions, refinancings, and exits collectively, as the firm does not maintain an external investment committee.

Ophiliam is a hybrid: it invests predominantly family and founder capital with no external LP fundraising cycles, yet operates like a private equity consolidator that can take management control of its holdings. It is legally a holding company (société holding animatrice) rather than a regulated fund manager, and it does not disclose third-party discretionary assets under management. This structure gives it the permanence of a family office with the operational intensity of a buyout firm.

The capital is primarily the founders' own wealth, accumulated through nearly three decades of private equity carried interest and entrepreneurial gains — notably from building Funecap from zero to €800m in revenue. The firm describes its capital as 'majoritairement familiaux' (majority-family capital). It has also historically raised co-investment alongside institutional partners, as evidenced by the ICG-led €2bn financing in 2025, but does not market a blind-pool fund.

Funecap is Europe’s largest funeral infrastructure and services group, created by Ophiliam's founders in 2010 and grown through over 400 add-on acquisitions. It generated €800m in revenue by 2025 and operates across 15 European countries. Funecap represents both Ophiliam's flagship asset and the best example of its build-and-operate model: the founders serve as Co-Présidents Exécutifs, and partner Olivier Serin runs the group as Directeur Général.

Ophiliam participates across stages depending on the asset class. In infrastructure and funeral services, it pursues consolidation and buy-and-build strategies. In recent years it has also backed growth-stage technology companies — for example, Upgrade (consumer fintech) and Cresta (AI contact-center platform) — suggesting it will write equity tickets into venture-funded businesses when they complement a broader thesis or offer asymmetric return profiles alongside its core infrastructure holdings.

Sourcing relies heavily on the founders' 30-year European network built across CDC Equity Capital, Charterhouse, and IDI, as well as on relationships with local public authorities cultivated through Funecap’s 150 crematorium concessions. The firm does not publicize a formal intermediary program. Its direct engagement with municipal governments and public-procurement processes — a skill set honed during the TDF and Epolia deals — provides a proprietary origination channel for infrastructure assets that few private equity firms can replicate.

Ophiliam does not publish an exclusions list, but its current four-class framework — infrastructure, private equity buyouts, real estate, and opportunistic investments — and its track record suggest it stays away from pure-play biotech, early-stage deep-tech with no near-term revenue, and commodity extractives. The portfolio’s center of gravity is businesses with stable or consolidatable cash flows, physical or regulatory moats, and the potential for operational intervention by Ophiliam partners.