Who are the Founders Riding the AI Agent Wave?

‍Who are the Founders Riding the AI Agent Wave? — European AI Founders Profile Mapping

Following Vertesia’s latest funding led by Ventech, let’s also take a look at Vertesia’s founder — Eric Barroca’s profile, the inspiration source of this article.

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We’re excited to announce our latest investment in Vertesia. The startup has built the next-gen IT platform for enterprises looking to develop and deploy their own AI agents.

Vertesia removes the complexity of creating custom AI agents by taking care of all the “plumbing” around large language models, security and data governance, compliance, multi-model adaptation, legacy system integration, and even intelligent document pre-processing to prevent hallucinations.

The founder of Vertesia — Eric Barroca’s personality and journey as a founder inspired us at Ventech to map out the typical founder profiles driving the autonomous AI agent wave, because this wave is unlike any other we’ve seen before, by far.

Who is riding the wave?

The explosion of autonomous AI agents is creating a wave of enthusiasm unlike anything we’ve seen in enterprise software in years. We’ve been paying close attention to who is catching this wave, and we see three distinct profiles of founders stepping up:

✅ Incumbents reinventing themselves: Those already in the market who must embrace AI agents to keep their businesses competitive.

✅ Repeat entrepreneurs: Like Eric — experienced founders, some of whom had previously “hung up their boots,” now back in the game because they can’t ignore this revolution.

✅ First-time, AI-native founders: Often young, deeply embedded in the technology, for whom building startups in this category is simply the new normal.

But still, what is Eric’s story?

Behind Vertesia is Eric Barroca, a founder with an extraordinary journey.

Eric is a repeat and successful entrepreneur, well known in the enterprise software space. Back in 2000, he joined Nuxeo in France as an early employee of a document management company. Nuxeo evolved in 2005 into an open-source content management platform and, from 2009, he took over as CEO and led it to become a global enterprise software company. In 2021, Nuxeo was acquired by US-based Hyland Software, delivering a very successful outcome to employees and investors, with a 5x+ return over 4 years.

But what’s striking is that Nuxeo’s success wasn’t a stroke of luck or a one-time “coup.” It was the result of perseverance through ups and downs, learning from experience, and iterating the product and go-to-market to find the right product–market fit in a very competitive and mature space. Eric built Nuxeo step-by-step — lessons he is now applying to Vertesia.

After Nuxeo’s exit, Eric could have easily bought a vineyard and enjoyed the craft of winemaking. But when he saw the emergence of AI agents and autonomous systems, the engineer and visionary in him knew he couldn’t ignore this wave — and he felt compelled to start a new company to be part of this technological revolution.

The playbook of a proven founder, applied to Vertesia

His profile combines rare qualities that make him, in our view, one of the best-positioned founders to ride — and shape — this wave.

Visionary & ambitious:
Eric believes enterprises are entering a new era where AI agents are not just an add-on but a completely new category of software, capable of mimicking (and often outperforming) human processes with fewer resources. He has a crystal-clear vision: AI agents deserve a dedicated environment for enterprises to build and deploy them securely and efficiently. His ambition? To build Vertesia into a global market leader.

Team builder:
Eric knows that building the right team is hard but essential. He has already convinced his former Nuxeo executives in the US — a rare feat — to embark on this new journey with him. Together, they’ve designed a lean, highly experienced, and execution-focused leadership team. He also has a strong belief in aligning and with investors, carefully sizing each funding round and building an attractive long-term equity story.

🌍 International by nature:
Having lived and worked in the US, France, and Japan, Eric brings a truly international mindset — essential to building a global enterprise software company.

💡 Savvy & disciplined:
We love founders who are wise about how they spend money, and Eric is exactly that. He started Vertesia as a self-financed company, developed the product with a limited R&D team, and has kept a close eye on both the top line and the bottom line — knowing that while there will come a time to scale aggressively, sustainability matters.

Community-minded:
Eric has a deep sense of fairness and partnership — with his team, his investors, and his customers. He understands that value creation is a collective endeavor and that valuations only truly matter at exit.

🎓Always teaching, always learning:
Every meeting with Eric brings new insights and depth. His ability to combine vision with technical and business acumen — expressed with directness and authenticity — is refreshing and rare.

When you meet a founder who could comfortably retire but instead chooses to build a transformational company, you know you’ve met someone special. Eric’s track record, clarity of vision, and ability to build world-class teams give us immense confidence in Vertesia’s future.

And founders — if you don’t see yourself on our map or feel we put you in the wrong bucket — drop us a line. We’d love to hear your story.

Point it out to Ventech’s team at yakun.wang@ventechvc.com