Romain Sigot

Plug and Play is coming to New York City! We're thrilled to announce our official expansion to NYC — and we're starting with something big. In partnership with the New York City Economic Development Corporation, we'll co-lead the NYC AI Nexus, a first-of-its-kind initiative to accelerate Applied AI adoption across the city's most important industries. Our mission: Help emerging founders turn breakthrough AI ideas into real-world solutions that transform businesses and industries. What we're building: ✨ Direct access to NYC's industries ✨ An SME Catalyst program connecting startups with small and medium enterprises ready to pilot AI solutions ✨ A collaborative ecosystem bringing together corporates, SMEs, universities, investors, and govt to responsibly advance AI ✨ Capital, mentorship, and our global network of 65+ locations to help founders scale Why New York, why now: New York is the world's #2 tech ecosystem — home to 25,000+ startups, 40,000+ AI professionals, and top tier academic institutions. The talent is here. The industries are here. The opportunity is massive. We've already backed several exceptional AI founders from the city. Now, we're doubling down on our belief that New York will produce multiple generational AI companies in the years ahead. If you're building Applied AI that solves real problems, we want to meet you. Let's shape the future of AI in NYC — together. 💡 Sherif Saadawi Shehab Heddaya Michael Olmstead Reza Bahadi Nate Hinman Carlos Perez-Pla

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Back to the mics. Today I’m excited to open a new chapter with the first episode of Humans of Asterion, a series of conversations with the investors and builders tackling deep, structural challenges within the Asterion Ventures ecosystem. And I couldn’t have hoped for a better opening guest than Patricia Apostol, CTO and co-founder of Bubble Robotics. Patricia worked at NASA, building robots for space exploration. She’s now applying that same engineering discipline to a frontier that is much closer, and still largely overlooked: the ocean. “The ocean has 30 times the carbon-capture potential compared to the same area on land. By 2040, the areas to monitor will be 1,000 times bigger,” she told me. And yet, we still inspect offshore infrastructure with boats, divers, and narrow weather windows - tools that simply don’t match the scale of what’s at stake. Bubble proposes a shift in mindset: instead of visiting underwater assets occasionally, we should live alongside them, through resident autonomous robots capable of continuous monitoring. We talked about: - space engineering applied to the ocean - why offshore energy, climate and security can no longer be separated - what it takes to build a deeptech company critical to Europe’s future The episode is now live. Link in the comments. (And if this resonates, their round remains open for a few more weeks. You can reach out via DM.) Next episodes continue this journey with Philippe Berland, CEO of EverDye, and Alex Haag, CEO of the Franco-German deeptech Futurail. For me, this podcast is also a return to long-form interviews - and I’m genuinely happy to be back in this format.

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My colleague Brookfield Private Equity CEO Anuj Ranjan's recent Reuters Open Interest op-ed outlines that the AI revolution will be written in nuts and bolts - inside factories and supply chains, not just in code. For us, this is roll-up your sleeves work in real assets in the real economy. AI is a force multiplier - but only when it's embedded into uptime, productivity, demand planning and supply chain resilience. Owning essential industrial businesses is the start. The real value is built through hands-on operational transformation – modernizing, digitizing and executing at scale. https://lnkd.in/erx_xWxw This article was originally published in Reuters Open Interest (ROI)

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In this full interview on the ground at SuperReturn in Berlin, with Julianna Tatelbaum from CNBC’s Squawk Box, I dive into what’s behind the current exit slowdown, how firms are navigating uncertainty, and why the PE playbook matters more than any forecast. With $1.2T in dry powder and 30,000 unsold companies, the opportunity is real. Watch the full conversation below. #SuperReturn #PrivateEquity #CNBC #SquawkBox

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A sharp start-of-year note from Mitch Berlin on what leadership looks like in 2026: growth through uncertainty. He connects the dots between the M&A rebound, enterprise-wide transformation, and the next wave of AI value creation, then lands on a practical takeaway for boards and CEOs: stay flexible, keep momentum, and build resilience while pursuing expansion.

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Don't sleep on Asia... or Europe. Private equity in these regions outperformed U.S. public benchmarks in 2025, with Europe offering a lower-risk profile. While U.S. private equity remains the strongest absolute performer, we expect allocations outside of the U.S. to grow. https://gag.gl/2xtBJJ

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Bain & Company’s Suzanne Kumar joined Bloomberg TV’s “The Close” to discuss the M&A rebound, highlighting a broad-based recovery led by strategic buyers, rising deal volumes, and a shift toward scope deals—along with AI’s growing influence on deal selection and valuations. https://bit.ly/4aWVvBD

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Bain & Company's Nirad Jain spoke with PE Hub about Bain's latest healthcare PE study. "The optimism around stability is probably higher than I've heard it has been at any other time in the last couple of years," said Jain. https://bit.ly/45FLeGX

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At JPM this year, Averin Capital co-hosted "The Opening Bell: Innovator's Breakfast" with Nasdaq, alongside our partners KPMG, Latham & Watkins, and Kranz Consulting. What stood out across the best discussions in the room: 🧠 AI is assumed, not differentiated 🏥 Distribution and regulatory posture are the real gating factors 💰 Capital alone is not a moat What this means in more detail ⚙️ AI has crossed the chasm from feature to table stakes. Many companies still struggle to articulate what compounds over time. If your model does not get structurally better with scale or hold a truly differentiated position, it will get competed away. Recent healthcare moves from OpenAI and Anthropic make that explicit 📊 The winners are often boring on the surface. Less talk of disruption. More focus on value proposition, incentive alignment, clinical outcomes, and a deep understanding of how dollars actually move through the system. 🏢 Strategic buyers usually know exactly what they are missing. Many startups still have work to do in understanding why a buyer needs to own them versus simply use them. 🧾 Regulatory strategy is no longer about speed to approval. It is about designing the company so compliance, evidence generation, and reimbursement reinforce each other rather than slow everything down. The market is rewarding teams that understand healthcare as an operating system, not a pitch category. Grateful for the founders and operators who showed up early and spoke candidly. Looking forward to continuing the discussions.

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