Aster Capital, a France-based clean-tech focused venture capital firm backed by local companies as limited partners, has hired Todd Dauphinais as an investment partner to open and lead its North America office.
Chicago-based Dauphinais was the former president of US-based EFI Electronics, a manufacturer of power quality and protection equipment subsequently renamed Surgelogic after its acquisition by industrial conglomerate Schneider Electric.
Schneider is one of two cornerstone limited partners (LP) backing Aster, the other being Alstom.
Prior to EFI, Dauphinais spent eight years in corporate development at Schneider investing in the energy efficiency, smart grid, energy infrastructure and automation sectors and a further seven years of experience as a strategy consultant with Deloitte Consulting where he advised energy firms on strategy and M&A projects.
He said by email: "While I didn’t make corporate venture investments at EFI specifically, my background is with the corporate M&A team at Schneider and previously in the transaction services group at Deloitte Consulting so I come to this role with some significant transaction and operating experience as well as some deep roots within one of our main LPs – Schneider Electric. In my corporate development role at Schneider, I got to know Jean Marc and the Aster Capital team well as we worked together on several files, including the CPower investment."
Jean-Marc Bally, general partner of Aster, which manages $175m and also has offices in China and Japan, said: "Todd brings a unique skill set to this role including almost 15 years of experience in investing, operating and consulting in the energy and infrastructure space."