Eloa Guillotin On Raising $44 Million To Build The World’s First Electric Business Aircraft With Low Emission Hydrogen Propulsion

In the heart of a quiet French village, a young girl stared at the night sky, dreaming of the stars and the mysteries of space. That girl, Eloa Guillotin, would grow up to co-found Beyond Aero, a groundbreaking company building hydrogen-electric planes, redefining the future of aviation.

Beyond Aero has attracted funding from top-tier investors like Bpifrance, Y Combinator, Initialized Capital, and Female Funders Found.

In this episode, you will learn:

• Eloa Guillotin’s fascination with aerospace began in a small French village, proving that ambition can thrive anywhere.
• Beyond Aero combines innovation with sustainability, tackling aviation’s environmental challenges through hydrogen-electric planes.
• Structured feedback and clear roles among co-founders ensure a harmonious and effective collaboration.
• Pivoting during the pandemic led to the creation of Beyond Aero, showing resilience in the face of adversity.
• Using mature technologies adapted for aviation helps Beyond Aero balance innovation with safety and feasibility.
• Securing almost $1B in LOIs early validated Beyond Aero’s market opportunity and potential.
• Eloa’s ultimate dream of an all-electric sky showcases the transformative power of long-term goals.

 

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About Eloa Guillotin:

Eloa Guillotin, 27, has dedicated her life to making aviation electric. After graduating from the world’s best aerospace universities (UC Berkeley, Polytechnique, Supaero & HEC), she launched her third venture, Beyond Aero, to build the first hydrogen-electric business aircraft.

Starting with a 6-passenger private aircraft at the crossroads where the need is strong with a CO2 emission of 2T/hour per jet and the fastest certification timeline.

Beyond went through YCombinator, gathered 10 million euros, built an 85kW prototype, and was selected Top 20 FrenchTech Green. With an engineering team of over 30 people, Eloa has received multiple awards, including the French Academy of Technologies and Forbes 30Under30 France.

She regrouped the best talents in the world from top-tier Airbus and Lilium’s Managers. She is a people-driven, passionate entrepreneur, bold in her actions, and ready to fight to make the world a better place.

Connect with Eloa Guillotin:

• LinkedIn
• Crunchbase
• TheOrg
• Instagram

Read the Full Transcription of the Interview:

Alejandro Cremades: Alrighty, hello everyone and welcome to the Dealmaker show. So today we have an amazing founder joining us. She’s a ah powerhouse. you know We’re going to be really talking about a lot of the good stuff that we like to hear, like building, scaling, financing. i mean in the in there In their end, you know they’re in in innovating in aerospace. It’s not a really easy ah industry to really operate on, but they they’ve done quite well. They’re writing a rocket ship you know and and really getting a lot of momentum, especially given their last round that they did too. And we’re going to be talking about co-founder relationships. They’re also athletes. So how to think about that too when you’re building a business, how to think about two building an engineering driven team. It took them on their end to get to prototype about two years. So talking about that journey is going to be quite an incredible as well as

Alejandro Cremades: thinking about accelerator programs when you’re a deep tech company and other really good stuff. So again, brace yourself for a very inspiring conversation today. And without further ado, let’s welcome our guest today. And that is Elua Guillotin. Welcome to the show.

Eloa Guillotin: Thank you very much. My pleasure to share this moment with you.

Alejandro Cremades: So originally born in France, so out of a small town there, give us a walk through memory lane. How is life growing up for you?

Eloa Guillotin: That’s a big question i will ah I will summarize very shortly. I was born and raised in ah St. Juliet, a very, very small town, farm and village with nothing to do. And I was born for most of my childhood. So I was doing two things, looking at the stars and doing sports.

Eloa Guillotin: And so from day one, I was ah dreaming to be an astronaut. And my neighbor was a former um test pilot. So I was just speaking ah with him hours and hours about, OK, what is a plane? How do we go to the stars? What is a lunches? And that was my passion from day one.

Eloa Guillotin: So then I left home at 17 as soon as I could to go study in aerospace in Toulouse. So I’m an aerospace engineer. And now I’m the co-founder and CEO of the company building a hydrogen electric plane.

Alejandro Cremades: And we’ll talk about that in just a little bit. Now, one thing that is really amazing is how you develop that love so early on. I mean, how how how did that really happen? so I mean, it’s quite inspiring, like, so early in your life to really have that determination and a really good idea of what your path is going to be when you’re older.

Eloa Guillotin: Honestly, I don’t exactly know where it’s coming from. Because like you said, it was early, early years. So I don’t have memories. But like back at the time, I just remember some books that I had on my ah next to my ah bed. And I was just reading that at night. So just feeding my imaginary imagination with planets, stars, rockets, lunches. And I even started to learn Russian at what at one point. Because ah back at the time, we could only go to the through the moon with a and with ah as a national if we speak version. So yeah, no, I would not really be able about to explain the detail of how. What I know for sure is that my family is not from the aerospace industry. ah They are neither entrepreneur or neither engineers from an even less aerospace. So I guess I would just explain it by saying,

Eloa Guillotin: that I was really, really bored in this little village and that I think I reacted by doing exactly the opposite. Of course, I wanted to build something big, something within parks, something that people would dream of and make, however, yeah, do something exactly the opposite of this little village.

Alejandro Cremades: That’s amazing. Now, here here you are. You have a clear idea of what’s the path that you want to um ah follow. You go to Toulouse. You’re now involved into the aerospace say and you know community and and and and field. And how do you start to think about, because i mean that’s something that you started to really push on when you graduated and then you started to do your master’s degree.

Alejandro Cremades: ah And you combine there, again, a master’s degree on aerospace and another one in business. So how did the idea of really getting that combination and bringing business in the mix, you know, also kick in?

Eloa Guillotin: Mm hmm. I’ve realized during my studies that at first I thought I wanted to be the engineer and I realized being an engineer is not just inventing the product but more about building the how one subsystem of the product would work and I was more the one who wanted to invent the product.

Eloa Guillotin: So during the engineering studies, I’ve worked on a lot of different, I would not call them starter, but let’s say big projects about let’s try to invent a super capacity for smartphones, or let’s build a ah but a solar backpack for hiking. So, you know,

Eloa Guillotin: Now I realize it was the beginning of an entrepreneur mindset, but um that’s how it’s swift. My engineering studies switched to actually I want to be able to invent the project, sell it and have an impact on um on the market. ah But with a more a bit more deeper reflection at eight years old, I was ah selling chocolate lights on the Christmas market of my village.

Eloa Guillotin: And then at 13 years old, I was going to the golf court, taking the golf that was in the bushes, cleaning them and selling them again to the golfers.

Eloa Guillotin: so Yeah, I think this entrepreneur mindset was more in my DNA from day one, but then it got combined with aerospace, a passion that I have. And then we will talk about the market and the product, but then with a market opportunity arise, then I’m like, sure, let’s go. That’s my dream.

Alejandro Cremades: Amazing. now Now, for you, the the company that you’re leading right now, which which you are one of the co-founders, Beyond Iero, is ultimately the product of also you testing things out, doing several projects, and it was kind of like more like doing six projects, ultimately what led to Beyond Iero to be born. So walk us through how that journey was and how things were taking shape, leading you all the way to landing on the idea of Beyond Iero.

Eloa Guillotin: Like you said, I’ve done ah different projects with one of my co-founders, Hugo. And we’ll talk about co-founders, but that’s key for me, because being an aro was not born just by me, but within the three co-founders’ ideas. So we’ve done a ah few projects together. And then ah at the end of the studies, you know we had this American dream to to to fit to stay in California,

Eloa Guillotin: to build the company and go big. And then COVID happened. COVID happened means um I’ve been called by ah by uni, hello, you need to be back in France, and and you’re gonna have the graduation on Zoom. Okay, sure. So the only house I had was in Saint-Suliac, my little village. And so this big dream was completely concerned. And I was just stuck in St. Suliac in this little village. age And that frustration raised again. And so we’ve discussed a lot, a lot, a lot doing with the three co-founders, right? Lugo and Valentin during those time this time. And we sat down and we discussed about what is our definition of success. What do we want to do in life? Why the six different projects we’ve done did not really work.

Eloa Guillotin: And so we sat down about, okay, what is a successful company for us? Sure, people and fundraising is a KPI, but that’s not our success. What do we really care about? And then that means personally, how do you want to lead to that success?

Eloa Guillotin: And so that’s how Beyond Arrow came up, is that actually we said, for sure, one market opportunity and relying on existing technology. Second, passion. We’re going to spend hours and hours on that. We need to love the subject. And third, people. I’m not saying in order, right? Some people would, yeah, it could be people and then passion and then market, whatever. That was the three pillars.

Eloa Guillotin: And by that time, Valentin was working on electric engine, only the engine. And he was working on the certification path for the engine. Hugo, he worked on fuel cells and hydrogen propulsion before.

Eloa Guillotin: I mean more the market and entrepreneur side. And we’re like, okay, let’s combine those three. And we have this clique of, we love aviation. We know electric electric engines are getting certified. We know that aircraft are polluting too much. Aviation will be electric. And now that’s the vision. So that’s the baseline of the company. And that happens during COVID.

Eloa Guillotin: Aviation will be electric the question is when is it gonna take a thousand years? 300 years a hundred years or 20 years one day My my dream will be just to look at the stars and look at the sky and see only electric plane It’s not just a dream. I’m pretty sure it will happen and then you know, that’s the dream and now we are a dream without um like a vision without a an action plan stays a dream.

Eloa Guillotin: So then we just roll our sleeves and say, okay, where do we start? And now we focus on the project.

Alejandro Cremades: so So you were talking about the co-founders earlier in the team and and and how you guys also knew each other.

Eloa Guillotin: Yeah.

Alejandro Cremades: I guess talk to us about co-founder relationships, co-founder management, ah and then also how would you say that the fact that the three of you are athletes have helped you into really developing that competitive nature in the culture of the business?

Eloa Guillotin: and Very deep subject and very interesting. We’ve known each other for eight years and we’ve built so many projects together. So we know, first of all, I would say it’s important to know personally where are you good at and where are you bad at and to be able to share that with others. So that took us, I would say four years to honestly be able to say, okay, I’m good at that and plus I love it.

Eloa Guillotin: I’m a mediocre at that and I don’t love it or I love it. And I’m not good at that and I need you. And so we were lucky enough to find our definition of success that we’re not overlapping with each other.

Eloa Guillotin: That means Hugo’s definition of success is absolutely complimentary to mine. Mine is linked to our people, culture, product, and clients. Hugo is linked to manufacturing, certification. So it’s absolutely complimentary. So going is hard to maintain. It’s like, it’s even harder sometimes than ah than a wedding because ah you don’t have love. For wedding, you have love. Confund a relationship, it’s even,

Eloa Guillotin: yeah I would say even harder sometimes. um Then it’s hard to keep this dialogue and relationship healthy. And so we have created this feedback session moment. So every quarter we do a retreat in the Alps. So basically we just rent an old farm and and we go and on hiking or running and different things. And we just do this feedback session.

Eloa Guillotin: so You have two rules. First, you should not cut the parallel the speak of someone. You just let the the person speak as much as they want. this person should and And third is you should not react at the end. Just say thank you, and you go running. So it’s active listening, right? And the rule is to say all the positive you love about the other, all those things to improve, and concrete solution how to improve those things.

Eloa Guillotin: And so we have been doing that now for four years. We did not do that the first four years, but now we have been doing that. The first feedback session were really insane and very intense, sometimes even personal. But now that we are used to it, we keep this very balanced, healthy moment. You just rely on each other and open and be vulnerable. That’s the thing you can’t do on a daily basis of the business.

Eloa Guillotin: And to answer so your question about sports, um, like you said, yeah, we are, uh, at least we, you go was doing track and field violence, uh, swimming and, and me gymnastics and today three Atlas. And we love to compare our relationship to athletes, relationship in a team, for example, rugby or soccer. You have the captain, you have the coach, everyone has one clear defined role.

Eloa Guillotin: but you don’t want, you all want the same success. You all want to win the championship. But you should respect everyone’s lines and and you should also know when the person is strong or weak or you know each other. And sometimes you don’t have to speak out loud. You just know because you know you know them so deeply. And so we compare a lot of that of the three founders but also inside the team. And I love the sports analogy because sometimes you know the cliche of startup is, yeah, we are family, and I hate that. We are not family. It’s a professional environment. But it’s not either Airbus or very traditional way. So I like this middle ground of it’s exactly like a sport team. We are in a professional environment. We can share, have a beer afterwards. We can share very intense moments. But we are not family.

Eloa Guillotin: And so, the sport and analogy inside a startup, for me, makes a lot of sense. And also, we hire people that have a very sensitive high standard out of sports, because that means that they can also balance themselves. They know when they need to accelerate at work, they know when they need to relax, they have ups and downs, but they know themselves. They know their body, they know their mindset, and they can be autonomous. they so Yeah, I could speak for about that for hours, but that’s something that I deeply care about, and I’m applying that in the daily life of the company.

Alejandro Cremades: So I guess saying about Beyond Diara, what ended up being the business of Beyond Diara? And also, how do you guys you know think about making money here?

Eloa Guillotin: Well, we build plane. We are building a plane. It’s an electric plane. It’s a private jet, so six-seater, fully electric. running on 800 nautical miles, so that’s 1,000 miles. But it’s not lithium batteries electric, it’s hydrogen. I don’t know how how deep you want to go in technology, but lithium batteries are too heavy for a plane. So the only way to have a longer range is to use a hydrogen propulsion.

Eloa Guillotin: And so today our vision is a decline in a mission that is based on three pillars. The market need, private jets. They need two tons of CO2 per hour. It’s crazy. It’s time to have an electric private jet. But this this is also the market where clients can invest because it’s a more wealthy industry on private jets.

Eloa Guillotin: Second pillar is to rely on mature technology. That means we are doing gas hydrogen, we are buying the tanks, buying the fuel cells, buying electric engine. The core IP of the company is to redesign the plane around an existing powertrain. So we are relying on automobile industry, Formula One suppliers, aerospace suppliers, and we design the plane adapted to hydrogen.

Eloa Guillotin: And the third pillar is all about safety first, right? Certification. In aviation, you can do a lot of prototypes. If they are not certified, that means nothing. So how do we make money is by certifying the plane um and sell it. So you have the business model is traditional. We do not reinvent that. You sell the plane and then you also have services and maintenance nouse fees through the life of the plane.

Alejandro Cremades: so So one thing that I want to ask you too is how were the, you know, the early days too, because in 2022 as well, you joined Y Combinator and the Bionairo doesn’t seem to be like the typical um Y Combinator kind of company. So why did you all decide to go to Y Combinator and what was the before and after of Bionairo after the experience?

Eloa Guillotin: YC, if I don’t mistake, they usually take one aviation company per batch. They took a supersonic one, they took a hybrid plane, so one per batch. And so we are the hydrogen plane of YC.

Eloa Guillotin: um Indeed, we cannot just apply the ARR or typical KPI that YC is pushing. And YC is very well organized. So they have a dedicated partners to such deep tech companies.

Eloa Guillotin: But the syllable I apply the same principle, which is make something that people want. So from day one, they push my engineers, the engineer side of me to just go and speak to clients, speak to clients, speak to clients. So I’ve done that you during, first of all, before YC, but also during YC. And they pushed us on getting LOIs.

Eloa Guillotin: And that’s not traditional in aviation because it was too early for the project to have official airlines, LOIs, but I did it. And now we signed over a billion dollar in LOIs. And so I would say the before YC and post-YC was to be able to realize that even in a very traditional industry, you can applies a basic principle of what is a good business is to make something that people want. So let’s speak more with clients. Let’s add up the product to their needs and iteration. So from what I see now, I’m doing a run tables with clients, one performance, five clients are on the table and we discuss about our plane. And that’s really the main learning for me is legacy OEM manufacturers don’t do that.

Eloa Guillotin: And I would say that would mean different.

Alejandro Cremades: Now that’s pretty cool actually, but in your case as well, it took two years for prototype. I mean, in YC, you know, when someone, you know, throws something together, it’s like a landing page and hopefully someone is going to, is going to buy it. And then, you know, that gives you the the data points that, Hey, you may be on the right the track. In your, in your case, it took two years to build a prototype. What was, what was that journey like to getting to prototype?

Eloa Guillotin: First of all, once you have your vision, you need to have the mission. And once you know which plane do we want to build for which market, you need to assess the technical challenges and retro planning of what do we want to de-risk. So to be able to build a prototype, we needed to have the question, what are the technical challenge we need to de-risk? That was the first sequence to really be able to assess what is the level of maturity What are the things we can buy? What are the things we need to build on spec? Who are the right suppliers? Once you have that, then you reach for planning to, okay, now let’s build a prototype and you de-risk the technical bricks. um So it’s it goes like any project that I do with a traditional timeline, I would say. First, you assess the goal, the money and the people behind it. And then you find the partners and then you start building.

Eloa Guillotin: That’s a theory. In practice, it was crazy. um But we did it. So basically what we have done is that we wanted to de-risk the architecture of the powertrain subscale. So we have decided to design, integrate, test on the ground, and test in the air the first hydrogen electric plane of France, the most powerful one of Europe.

Eloa Guillotin: Even if it’s subscale for us, it’s a two-seater plane that we’ve put in the air. It’s still is the same architecture of the powertrain. So from that, that took us two years to build the project, find the right partners, find the pilot, onboard people. ah The leap time of component is really long. So to be delivered the component, to test it, to iterate, because it’s never first time right,

Eloa Guillotin: Then to get the permit to fly. It’s very special for this type of plane. um It’s faster for sure. And then to put it in the air. So yeah, two years two years project. We wanted it to be 18 months and two years.

Alejandro Cremades: That’s incredible. Obviously, as part of that, you know you need capital to be able to finance the operations and and everything. So how much capital have you all raised to date and what has been also the experience of going through those motions?

Eloa Guillotin: Now, December 24, we raised 44 million. We need way more to certify the final plane. um But it’s still a very good start. As you know, it’s exponential. So we now we are at the inflection point of such a company. How was it? Crazy, like every single ah fundraising, we’ve done three and a half rounds. I would say a half because in the middle you had save. So let’s say we’ve done three rounds, but in the middle we took saves. A part of those 44 are grants also, a small part of it, but still. um We’ve done one round in Europe before YC, small one, then we did YC, then we did saves, and then we did a service A, we simply closed 20 million.

Eloa Guillotin: How is it? um I loved it, to be honest, oh because I’m really, really convinced of what we are doing. But I also love everything that the build is achieving so many great milestones that my job is to vulgarize those milestones and explain how those milestones are de-risking the technology to people that don’t barely know anything too about aviation.

Eloa Guillotin: and That’s something I absolutely enjoy. um My little trick you asked me earlier about that, my only advice would be to go in person. Even if it was post COVID time, for such projects, I flew all over the world to meet people in person. And my conversion rate from Zoom to in person exploded. Yeah, so really the in person meetings are Working.

Alejandro Cremades: I can totally get that. Now, ah one thing that comes to mind is when you’re receiving money and investors are betting on you, and even, you know let’s say, employees as well, um they’re betting on a on on the future that you’re living into, and you are alluding to with with a vision. I mean, you’ve talked about vision many times, so I want to touch on this and double click on it. And if you were to go to sleep tonight,

Alejandro Cremades: And you wake up in a world where the vision of Bionario is fully realized. What does that world look like?

Eloa Guillotin: you would look at the sky and see three sides of plane electric private jet electric regional plane and commuters electric commuters i’m saying electric does not mean lithium batteries right i imply hydrogen electric behind that so vision is to make aviation electric and the retro planning is not just private jet private jet is a go-to market this is where the need is strong The technology is major and the certification path is simpler, quote. But the vision is you have to scale the size of the plane and would have three size, three family, it’s called program in aviation, to make to make aviation electric, not just business aircraft.

Alejandro Cremades: I love it. so We’re talking about the future here, but I want to talk about the past and doing so with a lens of reflection. so Imagine I put you into a time machine. And basically, I’m able to bring you back in time, you know, maybe to that moment where you are now ah brainstorming with your now co-founders about a world where you could bring something, you know, before you even got started with all the different projects that led to Beyond the Arrow. And let’s say you’re able to have a chat with that younger self, you know, maybe like four or five years ago, and you were able to tell that younger self one piece of advice before starting a business. What would that be and why, given what you know now?

Eloa Guillotin: I would not change anything. I would just say go faster. That means trust yourself on exactly is the same thing. Do the same mistake, the same good thing, that say the path, but just everything faster. That means don’t doubt. Just do it because some people are are telling me you are young for what you do and I think the opposite. I’m like, I’m already 28.

Eloa Guillotin: ah this plane should be built faster. So I would just say, trust your dream, trust your daring side of you. Just don’t doubt and just do it. That would be the so same path, but just faster.

Alejandro Cremades: I love it. So for the people that are listening that would love to reach out and say hi, what is the best way for them to do so?

Eloa Guillotin: Not linkading. I do not watch linkading. I don’t have Instagram. I don’t have Twitter. I’m sometimes too old French engineer. So honestly, it’s hard. I would say through Anais, my head of communication. She’s way better than me on that. I’m really focused on, ah I have a very strict schedule on discipline about myself, especially about sports. So I’m saying no as I discuss with you to most of the solicitation. So Anais is a good way. And worst case, find a way to find my WhatsApp number.

Alejandro Cremades: That’s a good one. Well, hey, well, thank you so much for being on the Deal Maker Show today. It has been an absolute honor to have you with us.

Eloa Guillotin: Thank you for your for your time and your interest. See you soon.

*****

If you like the show, make sure that you hit that subscribe button. If you can leave a review as well, that would be fantastic. And if you got any value either from this episode or from the show itself, share it with a friend. Perhaps they will also appreciate it. Also, remember, if you need any help, whether it is with your fundraising efforts or with selling your business, you can reach me at al*******@pa**************.com“>al*******@pa**************.com

 

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