Sebastien de Halleux is the COO of Saildrone,Inc., a company designing wind and solar powered ocean drones aiming at revolutionizing data collection at sea. At the confluence of autonomous technologies and big data, Saildrone believes that improving the understanding of our oceans will help better understand key planetary systems that affect humanity, such as weather, ocean acidification, and global fisheries.

 

He is also a founding partner of Graph Ventures, an early stage angel fund with a portfolio of 100+ startups.

 

Formerly, Sebastien was Co-Founder and COO of Playfish, one of the largest and fastest growing social gaming companies. Sebastien helped grow the company to over 300 million players in two years before being acquired by video game giant Electronic Arts (EA) in 2009. Prior to founding Playfish, Sebastien helped launch Glu Mobile, an early pioneer in mobile games which IPO'ed in 2007.

 

Sebastien is the recipient of the 2012 EA Emerging Leaders Award, the 2011 Tech 100 award, the 2010 TechFellow award, and the 2003 Booz Allen Professional Excellence Award. He sits on the boards of UWC-USA, the Solar Fuel Institute, and Trusted Family. He is passionate in helping the next generation of entrepreneurs, acting as mentor for the Founders Institute, BetaGroup and 500 Startups. Sebastien holds a Masters degree in Civil and Environmental Engineering from Imperial College London and is a member of the 2016 Class of Henry Crown Fellows and the Aspen Global Leadership Network at the Aspen Institute.