Tom joined Torch in 2004 as one of the founding team members and has originated and/or led the transaction execution of many of the firm’s most successful transactions.

In addition to leading the firm, Tom is Head of the M&A team and is active running transactions across the Digital Infrastructure, Software and FinTech verticals.

Rupert founded Torch Partners in 2003. He has since been the driving force behind the growth and development of the firm.

Rupert has led or been involved in many of the transactions on which Torch has advised, including some landmark deals in the European digital and technology sector over the last 20 years.

Jean-Baptiste is a highly respected investment banker with over 35 years of experience in France and abroad and is based in Paris.

After a scientific academic curriculum at the prestigious Ecole Polytechnique, Jean-Baptiste trained as a civil servant at the Ecole Nationale d’Administration and served for four years in the French Treasury Department.

In 1988, he joined Lehman Brothers in New York, before returning to Paris in 1991 where he joined Rothschild & Cie followed by SG Warburg in 1994.

Following the acquisition of SG Warburg by UBS, he founded the eponymous advisory boutique Toulouse & Associés in 2000, which later merged with Banca Leonardo to become a pan-European franchise. Jean-Baptiste joined Torch in 2018.

Tom joined Torch in 2004 as one of the founding team members and has originated and/or led the transaction execution of many of the firm’s most successful transactions.

In addition to leading the firm, Tom is Head of the M&A team and is active running transactions across the Digital Infrastructure, Software and FinTech verticals.

Victor Dobre is Head of Digital Infrastructure and is based in the firm’s London office. Victor has extensive experience in advising clients across the broader telecoms and digital infrastructure space worldwide.

Victor joined Torch in 2021 and brings with him more than 17 years investment banking experience.

Prior to joining Torch, Victor started his career with UBS Investment Bank in the M&A team, executing transactions across multiple sectors before joining the TMT Investment Banking team in London.

Lalit helps run the Software team where he focuses on advising fast-growing and exciting B2B enterprise software companies on their fund raising and M&A strategies.

Lalit is based in the firm’s London office and brings more than 18 years’ experience in advising clients in the software, data & analytics and tech-enabled sectors across EMEA and the USA. He is deeply enthusiastic about understanding how software companies enable their users to build better businesses for the future. At Torch, Lalit spends time across both horizontal and vertical software industry with increasing focus on the ESG / Climate / EHS sectors.

Previously, Lalit was a Director at Quayle Munro, prior to its acquisition by Houlihan Lokey in 2018. He joined Quayle Munro in 2017 from Morgan Stanley where he advised corporate clients and financial investors across a wide range of M&A and capital market transactions.

Yassir advises exciting software, services and technology clients on their M&A and fundraising strategies.

Yassir is a senior investment banker based in our Paris office. He brings over 20 years of investment banking experience across the technology, telecom and digital infrastructure sectors, in Europe and North Africa, advising clients ranging from large corporates to start-up founders.

Prior to joining Torch, Yassir was the co-founder of Quadrature, a technology-focused boutique, following a 12-year tenure at Leonardo & Co. where he led the TMT practice for France and North Africa. He started his career at Credit Suisse First Boston as part of the telecom and media team in London.

Alexandre is part of our Software team and brings more than 15 years' experience in investment banking to the firm.

Alexandre is a senior investment banker based in Paris with extensive experience advising corporations, entrepreneurs and investors on M&A and private capital transactions. An authentic Technology enthusiast, Alexandre focuses on the software & services sectors and has a genuine interest in digital health. He contributes to the firm's capabilities as a domain-focused financial adviser to clients in both the French market and internationally.

Prior to joining Torch in 2022, Alexandre was with Perella Weinberg Partners, Rothschild & Co and Lazard.

Andrew leads the Private Capital Markets team at Torch. He joined the firm in 2004 as a member of its founding team and brings over 20 years' experience in investment banking. His transaction experience spans all Torch’s tech sector verticals.

Since 2021, Andrew has raised capital of over $500m for high growth companies across the enterprise software, digital consumer, fintech and digital infrastructure sectors. In his career at Torch, he has completed more than thirty M&A and financing transactions in digital infrastructure, alongside his experience in other tech verticals.

Prior to joining Torch, Andrew was an early stage tech investor at Atlas Venture in San Francisco and London. He began his career in the healthcare investment banking team at Morgan Stanley.

Octavius is part of our Private Capital Markets team and brings more than 19 years’ private equity experience in both the investment and advisory sides.

Octavius focuses on delivering to clients a differentiated network of investors and acquirers, leveraging his deep and global relationships with family offices and institutional investors such as pension funds, insurance companies and sovereign wealth funds.

He was most recently Technology Partner at Access Capital Partners (>€13bn under management) where he invested across Europe. Prior to that, he held Managing Director positions at Clearwater International Corporate Finance and Paris-based corporate finance advisory Financière de Courcelles.

Raphaël is part of our M&A team and brings over 20 years' experience in investment banking to the firm.

Strong of his 25 years of experience in M&A and finance, he has solid experience in advising entrepreneurs, managers, investors and families in their development projects.

Prior to joining Torch Partners, as CFO for ACOEM Group, Raphaël was involved in the daily management and strategic leadership of a tech company. He enjoys engaging with new partners, digging for ideas and new deals. He focuses on origination and execution of M&A transactions across all sectors, from mid to large-caps.

Head of FinTech, focusing on providing strategic and financial advice to clients.

Rishi joined Torch in 2022 and brings with him over 20 years of financial services experience.

Rishi has strong relationships in the venture and growth capital ecosystem and a track record of raising private capital for and selling growth companies.

Rishi joined Torch Partners from FT Partners in London, where he spent over 3 years scaling their EMEA franchise. Prior to FT Partners, Rishi spent over a decade at Credit Suisse, both in New York and in London, advising FIG and FinTech clients as the Head of EMEA FIG M&A and Head of EMEA FIG Emerging Markets.

Jeremy sits in the FinTech team, where he supports founders and entrepreneurs as they embark on their journeys, to build businesses from the ground.

Strong of his 10+ years of experience in the FinTech and Financial Services sectors, Jeremy has always been passionate about the FinTech world. After spending 3+ years at Credit Suisse in London as part of their FIG EMEA coverage team, Jeremy naturally joined FT Partners in 2018 to launch and scale their London-based operations. He supported European and Asian founders and entrepreneurs across a wide range of FinTech verticals and developed a set of robust skills to help founders analyse their business and prepare for investors’ due diligence and scrutiny during a fundraising or a sale. Jeremy joined Torch in 2022.

Jeremy is absolutely amazed by the energy that founders invest into setting up, growing, scaling and accelerating businesses and find that helping them raising funds, achieving life goals and creating new jobs is a very rewarding feeling.

Harry is the team coordinator of the M&A team, where he works across all four of Torch’s verticals. Harry’s focus has been a mix of sellside transactions working with founder led businesses, and working with buyout & growth funds on buyside opportunities.

Harry has comprehensive sellside and buyside M&A and private capital fundraising experience, predominantly focussing on software, digital infrastructure and fintech. He particularly enjoys working closely with founders of high-growth businesses, both on growth rounds and exits. Recently, he worked with the founder of bunq to raise capital at a unicorn valuation and the largest European Series A round for a fintech company, as well as multiple founder led businesses in the Data Centre space.

Harry also has significant experience working with financial sponsors, utilising his comprehensive technical valuation and accounting experience. Harry worked with Permira’s Growth Opportunities fund on a Series D investment into Nexthink at a unicorn valuation.

The majority of transactions that Harry has worked on at Torch Partners have been with repeat clients or has come from referrals of previous clients.

Harry joined Torch in 2019, having previously worked in the M&A team at Standard Bank, covering Sub-Saharan Africa across all sectors. Prior to that, he worked at EY in both Audit and Financial Due Diligence.

Brenton is a Director within the Software team, where he supports origination, evaluation and transaction execution associated with high growth and entrepreneurial technology companies.

Brenton has an interest and passion for working with entrepreneurial tech and tech-enabled businesses and has been involved in several marquee growth and M&A transactions in Europe and the US. While his remit and experience extends across multiple verticals / horizontals, he more recently has spent a considerable amount of time within Impact and ESG software and their adjacencies.

Brenton joined Torch in 2020, having worked within the Software, Data and Analytics and Fintech teams at Houlihan Lokey and Quayle Munro.

Alexis is a Vice President within the Software team, where he supports with execution and origination of transactions associated with high-growth software businesses.

Since the beginning of his career, Alexis always had a keen interest in working with founders and management teams of trailblazing technology businesses across verticals, with a focus on software, fintech, and more recently blockchain technology. Thanks to his experience as an adviser and as an investor, he particularly enjoys the process of figuring out what makes each company a truly unique asset, anticipating questions that investors will ask when building their investment case.

Alexis joined Torch in 2023, having previously held investment professional roles at Binance Labs, Chiltern Street Capital, and SoftBank Vision Fund, and started his career in investment banking at Morgan Stanley with the technology team in London.

Alexis is a French national and speaks French, English and Spanish and resides in London, UK.

Raja is a Vice President within the M&A team in London, where he supports origination, and transaction execution associated with high growth technology companies.

Raja has extensive experience in Investment Banking, having worked on a number of M&A and capital markets transactions across sectors and geographies, particularly in the UK, Europe and Americas.

Raja joined Torch Partners in 2022, having previously worked for Morgan Stanley and BNP Paribas in London, UK and Haywood Securities and Fort Capital in Toronto, Canada.

Stefan is the team coordinator of the Private Capital Markets team at Torch. In this role, he works across the firm's verticals, with a focus on growth equity fundraisings in the $20 million to $200 million range.

With a strong background in fundraising, particularly in the software and consumer internet sectors, Stefan is passionate about helping founders of high-growth businesses raise capital for the next phase of their growth. He has also gained extensive experience working with growth equity investors in the tech sector from around the world.

Stefan joined Torch in 2018, after working at EY in both Audit and Transaction Services / M&A in both offices Munich and London. Stefan is a German native speaker.

Mathieu is part of our M&A team where he originates new opportunities and executes transactions.

Mathieu has advised on numerous M&A and private capital transactions across the Technology and Software space.

Prior to joining Torch in 2021, he worked at Credit Suisse and Royal Bank of Scotland, advising public and private clients across the Technology, Media and Telecoms sectors in EMEA.