Eloa Guillotin, Co-Founder and CEO at Beyond Aero to Appear on HySky Society's Podcast
Eloa Guillotin is on a collision course with aerospace history. On September 30, the co-founder and CEO of Beyond Aero will join the HySky Pod to discuss her mission to completely decarbonize private aviation. At the helm of a rapidly scaling startup, Guillotin isn’t just tweaking the margins of jet fuel efficiency. She is tearing up the blueprint to build the world’s first hydrogen-electric business aircraft.
Beyond Aero Co-Founder & COO Hugo Tarlé and CEO Eloa Guillotin 
Eloa Guillotin 
Eloa Guillotin smiles behind the propeller of Beyond Aero's hydrogen-electric test aircraft 
Eloa Guillotin finishing first 70.3 Ironman 
Beyond Aero CEO Eloa Guillotin with Caroline Demsar, CEO of Luxaviation
In this feature, you’ll trace Guillotin’s path from a small village in Brittany, through an internship at the Pic du Midi Observatory and studies at ISAE-SUPAERO, École Polytechnique, HEC Paris, and UC Berkeley, to co-founding Beyond Aero in Toulouse in 2020 with Hugo Tarlé and Valentin Chomel. You’ll follow the company through Y Combinator, its early work with EASA toward certification, more than $50 million raised [1], and $2 billion in signed letters of intent [2]. Along the way, you’ll see why Guillotin has earned recognition from Forbes 30 Under 30, Brilliant Minds, the Sigma Squared Society, and French President Emmanuel Macron.
Pic du Midi Observatory: Eloa Guillotin’s First Real Tech Gig Hunting Exoplanets
Guillotin grew up stargazing in Saint-Suliac, a small village in Brittany [3], and turned that curiosity into her first real tech job: an internship at the Pic du Midi Observatory, perched high in the French Pyrenees [4].
There, Guillotin helped researchers calibrate optical telescopes used to study exoplanets, planets that orbit stars beyond our solar system. The precision the work demanded instilled a rigorous engineering discipline.
The experience gave Guillotin an early grounding in deep-tech research that carried directly into her work in hardware engineering and aerospace.
The European Space Agency (ESA): A Study on Small Launchers
Before turning to aviation, Guillotin focused on space, writing her master’s thesis on disruption in the small launcher market and co-authoring a market study on the subject in 2020 [4, 5].
The study carried a preface by the head of the European Space Agency [5], a rare endorsement for work by a student.
It showed early on that Guillotin could connect complex engineering trends with market dynamics, a skill essential to building an entirely new category of aircraft.
ISAE-SUPAERO, École Polytechnique, HEC Paris, and UC Berkeley: A Rare Academic Resume
Guillotin’s education began at ISAE-SUPAERO in Toulouse, France’s premier aerospace engineering school, where she earned an aeronautical engineering degree in aircraft design [6].
Knowing that transforming aviation would take business skills too, Guillotin added master’s degrees in corporate finance and entrepreneurship from École Polytechnique (often called the MIT of France) and HEC Paris. That mix of engineering and strategy gives her an edge over founders who understand only one side of the equation.
Guillotin completed an entrepreneurship and technology exchange at UC Berkeley in 2020 [6], the same year she co-founded Beyond Aero, building a network of mentors, engineers, and investors along the way.
Valentin Chomel and Hugo Tarlé: Building the Founding Team
Guillotin met Hugo Tarlé at ISAE-SUPAERO, and he became Beyond Aero’s co-founder and Chief Operating Officer [6, 7]. To round out the team, they needed deep expertise in electrification.
They found it in Valentin Chomel, whom Guillotin met at École Polytechnique in 2019 [8]. After working on flight test instrumentation at Safran, Chomel had been pursuing a PhD on electrification technology roadmaps [9].
Convinced by Guillotin’s vision for a clean-sheet hydrogen-electric aircraft, Chomel joined Beyond Aero as co-founder and Chief Strategy Officer [7].
Beyond Aero and Y Combinator: A Serial Entrepreneur’s Breakout
Success in aerospace demands a high tolerance for failure. Before Beyond Aero, Guillotin launched five other projects that never took off [4], and she credits that trial and error with giving her the resilience a hardware-heavy aviation startup requires.
That resilience paid off when Beyond Aero joined Y Combinator’s Winter 2022 batch as the only aviation company in its cohort [3, 10]. YC is the accelerator behind Airbnb, Stripe, and Dropbox. Beyond Aero’s investors now include Giant Ventures, Bpifrance, Initialized Capital, Female Founders Fund, and 7 Percent Ventures, along with the co-founders of Airbnb and Dropbox [1, 2, 11].
Metric | Detail |
Founded: | 2020 |
Batch: | Winter 2022 |
Team Size: | 80 |
Status: | Active |
Location: | Toulouse, France |
Primary Partner: | Gustaf Alströmer |
Beyond Aero’s primary YC partner, Gustaf Alströmer, helped start Airbnb’s growth team in 2012, and the YC companies he has worked with are worth a combined $118 billion [12].
Sir Richard Branson and the Necker Island Summit
As a fellow of the Sigma Squared Society, a global community of young founders, Guillotin was invited to a retreat hosted by Forming Impact on Sir Richard Branson’s private Necker Island in the British Virgin Islands.
The gathering brought together unicorn founders, CEOs, and creators to discuss global impact. For Guillotin, trading ideas with the founder of Virgin Group and Virgin Galactic reinforced that Beyond Aero’s mission resonates far beyond Europe.
Emmanuel Macron and the French Government: National Backing
Beyond Aero has become one of France’s most closely watched aerospace startups, and its mission aligns with Europe’s climate goals.
In June 2023, French President Emmanuel Macron publicly voiced his support for Beyond Aero [13], a strong signal that the company is seen as part of France’s industrial strategy for aerospace.
That support extends to funding. Beyond Aero has been backed by the government’s France 2030 program since its inception, and Bpifrance’s Deeptech 2030 fund co-led its Series A [11].
The Headwind Philosophy: Guillotin’s Personal Motto
Building a new class of aircraft, navigating certification, and managing a fast-growing engineering team is intense work. To keep going, Guillotin leans on a quote often attributed to Henry Ford [14]: “When everything seems to be going against you, remember that the airplane takes off against the wind, not with it [4].”
For Guillotin, resistance is not a signal to stop. It is what creates lift.
Whether facing skeptical investors, fuel cell integration challenges, or a demanding regulatory path, she treats each headwind as the force that will lift the company higher.
Brilliant Minds: Winning Brilliant Innovators 2023
In June 2023, Guillotin won Brilliant Innovators, the startup competition at the Brilliant Minds conference in Stockholm, which gathers global leaders in tech, business, and culture [15].
The pitch laid out Beyond Aero’s plan to decarbonize private aviation with a clean-sheet, hydrogen-electric business aircraft designed to carry six passengers up to 800 nautical miles [10], targeting one of the most carbon-intensive ways to travel.
The win came the same year Guillotin was named to the Forbes 30 Under 30 Europe list for Social Impact [16], adding to recognition from Forbes 30 Under 30 France and the French Academy of Technologies [4, 17].
EASA Certification and the Toulouse Lab: Rewriting the Rules of the Sky
Building a new aircraft is one thing; certifying it is another. Rather than waiting until the end of development, Beyond Aero engaged the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) early through a pre-application services contract [18] and applied for Design Organisation Approval in April 2024. The aircraft is being developed to CS-25 transport-category standards, and in March 2026 the company completed its Preliminary Design Review [19].
To prove the technology, the team built a hydrogen-electric powertrain lab in Toulouse, Europe’s aerospace capital. It replicates three representative propulsion channels with a combined 1,200 kilowatts and tests hardware from three different fuel cell providers for performance and redundancy. In October 2025, the system reached Technology Readiness Level 6 at full-scale power [18]. The lab builds on an earlier milestone: in February 2024, Beyond Aero’s 85 kW flying test bench completed France’s first manned, fully hydrogen-electric flight [2, 11].
The lab also tackles hydrogen’s biggest challenge, storage and safety, by compressing, filling, storing, and using hydrogen at 700 bar in Type IV tanks [18]. Proving this on the ground helps show regulators that the architecture can scale safely to everyday flight.
Watch: Eloa Guillotin on Hydrogen-Electric Aviation at the Future Investment Initiative
In a sit-down interview at the Future Investment Initiative (FII) in Riyadh, Eloa Guillotin walks through Beyond Aero’s hydrogen-electric technology, its growing order book, and her path from childhood stargazing to leading one of aviation’s most ambitious startups. It is a rare look at both the technical and personal story behind the company.
Eloa Guillotin’s story is one of conviction, from stargazing in a Breton village to building an aircraft that could transform flight. On September 30, Guillotin joins the HySky Pod to talk about what it takes to lead one of aviation’s most ambitious decarbonization efforts: the technology, the headwinds, and the belief that cleaner skies are within reach. Tune in wherever you get your podcasts.
Works Cited
Assembly Magazine. (2025, December 12). Beyond Aero Reveals Plans for Next-Generation Aerospace Factory. Assembly Magazine. Source
Beyond Aero. (2026). Press Kit. Beyond Aero. Source
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Académie des technologies. (n.d.). Eloa Guillotin. Women in Tech. Académie des technologies. Source
Female Founders Fund. (n.d.). Beyond Aero. Female Founders Fund. Source
Pictet. (n.d.). Eloa Guillotin, Co-Founder and CEO of Beyond Aero. Pictet. Source
Beyond Aero. (n.d.). Team. Beyond Aero. Source
HEC Stories. (n.d.). Beyond Aero: Hydrogen on Cloud Nine. HEC Paris. Source
TechCrunch. (2023, September 19). Beyond Aero Is Building a Hydrogen-Powered Jet. TechCrunch. Source
Y Combinator. (n.d.). Beyond Aero: First Electric Business Aircraft Designed for Hydrogen Propulsion. Y Combinator. Source
Airframer. (2024, October 28). Beyond Aero Raises Total Capital to $44M to Electrify Aviation with Hydrogen Propulsion. Airframer. Source
Y Combinator. (n.d.). Gustaf Alströmer. Y Combinator. Source
Guillotin, E. (2023, June). What a surprise to hear “Beyond Aero” publicly supported by our… [LinkedIn post]. LinkedIn. Source
Wikiquote. (n.d.). Talk: Henry Ford. Wikiquote. Source
Brilliant Minds. (2023). Brilliant Innovators 2023. Brilliant Minds. Source
Forbes. (2023). Eloa Guillotin: 30 Under 30 Europe 2023, Social Impact. Forbes. Source
Brilliant Minds. (2023). Pitch 2023: Eloa Guillotin. Brilliant Minds. Source
Runway Girl Network. (2025, October). Beyond Aero Hits Hydrogen-Electric Propulsion Milestone. Runway Girl Network. Source
H2 Tech. (2026, March). Hydrogen Aviation OEM Beyond Aero Reaches Key Aircraft Design Milestone. H2 Tech. Source
