At the Panoramai AI Summit, Julien Pache emerged as the panel's philosophical conscience, bringing a nuanced perspective that balances entrepreneurial pragmatism with deep ethical reflection. His investment approach represents a rare combination of market realism and normative thinking about technology's societal impact.

Strategic Investment Philosophy

Pache's investment thesis centers on the intersection of biotechnology and AI, which he terms "tech bio." His rationale demonstrates sophisticated understanding of defensible market positions: « You have data that is hard to find, quite scarce, quite specialized, that are hard to generate and obviously the capability now and expertise from people that understands the problem or the drug development pipeline in a very specific way ».

This focus on tech-bio reflects his broader investment philosophy prioritizing proprietary data and verticalized expertise. Rather than chasing broad AI applications vulnerable to commoditization, Pache seeks opportunities where domain knowledge creates natural barriers to entry.

The Marketplace Strategy Innovation

Pache revealed an innovative approach to AI software investment that sidesteps traditional SaaS model vulnerabilities. His strategy involves deliberately commoditizing AI tools to capture value at the transaction level: « Our vision is that there is a lot of people adopting that as a kind of copilot, but at the end of the day would be a marketplace for services in the legal space so that you can actually create a marketplace and take a take rate from the legal services ».

This marketplace approach acknowledges software's inevitable price compression while positioning for sustained revenue through service transactions - a sophisticated hedge against AI-driven commoditization.

Ethical Investment Boundaries

Pache distinguished between descriptive and normative investment criteria with characteristic intellectual honesty. Descriptively, he avoids commoditization-prone investments. Normatively, he excludes AI defense applications: « I'm not very excited personally with AI and defense. There are many people doing it. There is nothing wrong about. I think Europe might have to do it. I don't vibe for it ».

This stance reflects his broader philosophical approach to technology's unintended consequences. When discussing AI's democratizing potential, he cautioned: « I think with those shoot questions that are very hard because they are very normative... most of the technology have many kind of good side and bad sides and, and in a market economy sometimes you see, okay, we want to cure cancer, but we ended up generating cat videos ».

Questioning Technology's Trajectory

Pache consistently advocated for critical examination of technological development rather than uncritical optimism. His perspective emphasizes the complexity of predicting technology's ultimate applications: « I think questioning every step of the way is very important because there's a lot of unintentional consequences of every step we take ».

This philosophical stance positions him as a thoughtful counterweight to Silicon Valley's "move fast and break things" mentality, advocating instead for deliberate consideration of each innovation's broader implications.

Venture Capital's Structural Reality

On the future of venture capital, Pache offered the most traditional perspective among panelists, arguing that competitive pressures actually increase capital requirements despite lower building costs: « If it's more competitive, you're going to actually foie gras those startups into distribution to get remote ».

He predicted industry consolidation driven by poor returns rather than fundamental model obsolescence, demonstrating pragmatic understanding of VC economics while maintaining skepticism about algorithmic investing: « Early stage is not about data, it's about people. It's about three, four people. Why did they build the company? There is a chemistry ».

European Market Positioning

Pache sees Europe's pharmaceutical infrastructure and specialized talent as fundamental advantages in tech-bio development. His reference to DeepMind's AlphaFold demonstrates how European companies can build defensible positions at the intersection of AI and established industries with high barriers to entry.

His investment approach explicitly leverages Europe's strength in deep domain expertise while acknowledging the global nature of technology markets.

Key Achievement

Julien Pache demonstrated how philosophical rigor can enhance rather than constrain investment decision-making, showing European investors how to navigate AI's ethical complexities while building commercially viable businesses. His framework for balancing normative values with market realities offers a model for responsible innovation in an era of rapid technological change.

His nuanced position on technology's dual nature - simultaneously transformative and potentially harmful - provides essential perspective for an industry often caught between utopian and dystopian extremes. By questioning assumptions while remaining commercially engaged, Pache exemplifies the kind of thoughtful leadership Europe's AI ecosystem needs to maintain competitive advantage while preserving humanistic values.