For investors in games, entertainment and technology

Technical due diligence from a CTO who has shipped what you are about to fund.

I help investors see what a company has really built, whether its team can ship the rest, and what the gaps will cost. Before the money moves.

Discuss a deal See the track record

20+ years building engineering teams and shipping complex software

NES Classic Edition original concept and technical direction, at Nintendo European R&D

30+ titles shipped worldwide on the Nintendo DS emulator I led for Wii U

CTO since 2017 full-time, transition and fractional, for studios and startups

Most technical risk is not in the data room.

It sits in the build that breaks every other day, the engine nobody on the team fully understands, the outsourced team that holds the real knowledge. You find it by having lived with it.

I have run the teams you are evaluating

I built an emulation team of ten from scratch at Nintendo European R&D, and as a studio CTO I owned the roadmap, the hiring plan, the engineering budget and the vendors.

I still read the code

Code review, reverse engineering, performance work and penetration testing are things I do myself. A polished demo does not survive that kind of look.

I report in decisions, not jargon

I have worked directly with Nintendo Japan project leadership and sat in executive discussions as a consulting CTO. You get what matters, what does not, and what it costs.

The experience behind the judgement

2011 to 2017 Nintendo European R&D Chief Innovation Officer, France and Japan

From an idea to the NES Classic Edition

I created the original concept for the NES Classic Edition and led its technical direction through launch. That meant building the emulation team from scratch, writing a new NES emulator under severe schedule constraints with accuracy to the original hardware as the main risk, and working directly with project leadership at Nintendo Japan.

I also led the Nintendo DS emulator for Wii U, from architecture to delivery. It shipped worldwide across more than 30 Virtual Console titles.

Since 2023 Tuesday Quest Porting, optimisation and production pipeline

A production pipeline rebuilt and a game shipped on four platforms

I led the porting and technical production of A Planet of Mine: Mastermind Edition for Nintendo Switch, Windows, macOS and Linux, introduced CI/CD where none existed, and built the internal tools the team was missing.

30 to 60 fps: frame rate of the shipped game
1 s to 5 ms: representative save time
10+ to under 1: broken builds per month

2020 to 2021 LightbulbCrew Chief Technical Officer

Running a studio's technology from the inside

I led a six-person engineering team across two projects and owned the technical roadmap, hiring plan, engineering budget and vendor management. I redesigned engineering recruitment, cut onboarding time and build failures, and supervised the Unity and Unreal stacks on cloud-agnostic CI/CD.

Since 2017 Reviews and CTO advisory Studios, startups, technology companies

Assessing other people's technology and teams

Hakuro. Consulting CTO to leadership, reviewing the work of a ten-person outsourced engineering team once or twice a week.
EverreachLab. Review of Unreal engineering work and external team delivery, with advice on AWS, devops and infrastructure.
Mainbot. Four-month transition CTO mission: reviewed the R&D roadmap and refocused priorities on the core education proof of concept.
UnitedBits. Technical stack assessment, feasibility studies, roadmap and architecture recommendations.

Since 2017 Security, AI and reverse engineering Hands-on specialist work

The depth to check a claim myself

Infrastructure audit, penetration test and code review for Nemorius.
Rewarded for finding security flaws in Cal.com. NFC security research presented at Pass The Salt 2019.
Applied deep learning advisory through Publicis, on a confidential project for a global leader in cosmetics.
Reverse engineering and Unity architecture for Forever Entertainment on Front Mission 1st: Remake.

What I examine

Product and architecture

Whether the system matches the pitch. Architecture, code quality, technical debt, and how much is product versus demo.

Team and organisation

Who really carries the technology. Key-person risk, hiring practice, and how much depends on outsourced teams.

Delivery and production

Build health, CI/CD, pipelines and tooling. Whether the roadmap is achievable with this team and this budget.

Platforms and performance

Engine choices across Unity, Unreal and in-house technology. Console and multi-platform readiness, porting and optimisation risk.

Infrastructure and security

Cloud architecture and devops, seen from both the architect's and the attacker's side. Audit and penetration testing where the deal warrants it.

AI and R&D claims

Whether the machine learning is real and reproducible, and how far the research is from something that runs in production.

Three ways to work together

Every engagement runs under NDA, with scope and fee agreed before work starts.

Before the term sheet

Red-flag review

A fast read from the data room, a product demo and a conversation with the technical lead.

You receive A short memo: the concerns that could change the deal, and the questions to put to the founders.

During exclusivity

Full technical due diligence

Code and architecture review, interviews with the team, inspection of pipelines and infrastructure, and a security review.

You receive A written report with risks ranked by severity and cost to fix, a summary for the investment committee, and a debrief call.

After the deal

Portfolio support

Transition or fractional CTO work to act on the findings: stabilise delivery, refocus the roadmap, oversee external teams.

You receive A remediation plan, hands-on leadership while it is carried out, and regular technical reporting.

From a few weeks to several months

Aurélien Pocheville

I have spent more than 20 years building engineering teams, shipping complex software and turning R&D into production. I started with research in virtual reality, haptics and physics simulation, published at IROS, HAVE and ICRA, then worked on console and PC games at Wizarbox, building engine technology for Nintendo DS, Wii, PS3 and PC.

I spent six years at Nintendo European R&D as Chief Innovation Officer. Since then I have worked as CTO, transition CTO and fractional CTO for game studios, startups and technology companies.

I am technical enough to debug hard problems myself, but most of my value is helping people decide what matters, what does not, and how to move again.

Languages: French (native), English (fluent), Japanese (JLPT N2)
Education: Engineering degree in computer science, ENSIIE

Looking at a deal?

Send me the sector, the stage and your timeline. I will tell you quickly whether I am the right person, and what a review would involve.

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Remote from France, GMT+1/+2