Founder Associate - Internship

Join Pelagon as a Founding Associate Intern. Build the future of maritime defense.

The sea is the physical layer of the economy—the conduit for our energy, communications, and trade. It is also Europe’s exposed flank. Pelagon is building the answer.

Founded by Aymeric (serial deeptech entrepreneur; founded & exited Scortex, Leading AI solution for manufacturing quality) and Gauthier (Navy officer and McKinsey), Pelagon is building a foundational multimodal acoustic model for autonomous maritime protection (underwater and surface) in service of European sovereignty. It will be deployed on a distributed, autonomous network of vectors (UUVs, buoys, sailbuoys, seabed…) to provide real-time understanding of underwater threats.

France and Europe have world-class acoustic engineers and a long history in underwater warfare. By bridging this expertise with modern physical-AI strategies (as seen in autonomous driving and robotics). Europe is still missing it’s naval NeoPrime, Pelagon aims to become to lead the way in autonomous marine protection—from detection to interception—partnering with leading navies, primes, and neo-primes, while also operating its own fleet as a service.

Pelagon is backed by Hexa, the pioneer startup studio in Europe, which has launched 35+ companies, including unicorns like Front, Aircall, and Spendesk, combining €230m+ ARR and €750m raised.

The role

Pelagon is a rapidly growing and mission-driven team.

Pelagon is working with navies and leading prime but everything is yet to build: the products, the processes, the relationships... That's the point. You'll be embedded in the founding moment of a deeptech and high impact company, with ownership over things that actually matter to the business surviving and growing.

Your week will never look the same twice. One day you're deep in a technical architecture discussion on sonar navigation or embedded systems. The next you're preparing a pitch, or helping structure a partnership with a defense industry player. You'll figure things out as you go, because that's what early-stage looks like.

Concretely, you'll work across:

• Business development and partnerships: identifying and structuring relationships with defense and civil stakeholders

• Technical Support: interface between our customers and the tech team to enable rapid iteration in our product development

• Demo, on field exercises and events: In defense you don’t tell you show, building Pelagon's credibility and revenue toward as a global AI defense leader

• Ops and strategy: helping build the operating infrastructure of Pelagon from scratch

• Fundraising support: market research, competitive landscape, investor materials

Who we're looking for

• You're finishing an engineering degree, ideally from a top engineering school or a science program with a strong technical foundation. You're drawn to hard problems, not just interesting ones.

• You have a genuine interest in defense and maritime domains. Ideally you have a strong personal history and passion for the sea (sailing, boat building, drone building) and/or defense.

• You care about European strategic autonomy and you've thought about what it means to build critical infrastructure.

• You're equally at ease in technical discussions as you are on more business-oriented missions.

• A strong plus: you've done a VOA (Volontaire Officier Aspirant) or any form of military immersion, or you have direct exposure to naval operations. You know what this world actually looks like from the inside.

Note: Defense and maritime have historically been male-dominated fields. We think that's a missed opportunity, because diverse teams build better products. That's why we're building Pelagon differently from day one, and we actively encourage women to apply.

Why Pelagon

• You'll work directly with two founders with complementary, rare profiles: deeptech builder and naval operator

• Real ownership in a company at its early stage, building something that matters

• Access to the Hexa network: 40+ companies built, $4.5bn in combined valuation, the best operators and investors in Europe

• Compensation: 1500€ per month

• Based in Paris, at La Cristallerie

• Green transportation: you’ll get compensation to pay for your green transportation to and from the office, whether you ride the metro, train, come by bike, electric scooter, or any other green modes of transportation to the office - as part of Swile’s mobility subscription

• Lunch: Swile Card (covered at 50%).

• Demotime: A quarterly offsite where all our startups pitch and demo their latest products.