About us

Matei Vulpe and Rene Zou, co-founders of Eklipse

How we came about

2023LondonSS 2023

Where it started

Rene and Matei met in London, both drawn to helping a young start-up in consumer tech succeed. Working with the founder separately, they found their skills complemented each other, and helped deliver a successful soft exit in under six months.
2024 – 2025UK · US · EU

Separate paths

That result stayed with them. Over the next years they built successful careers in different countries, each coming back with a breadth of experience.
2026NYC · London · SFAW 2026

Eklipse launches

Together again, they launched Eklipse to help founders move through inflection points, scale their companies and meet the right investors, customers, and partners.

Select a half to meet each founder

Portrait of Rene Zou

Founding Partner · CEO

Rene Zou

Rene brings 8+ years of experience working with founder-led companies on strategy, positioning and investor alignment across Europe, Asia and the Americas. Rene leads strategy and external functions at Eklipse.

Global. Strategic. Ambitious.

Rene is a builder, connector and strategist. Over the past decade, she's lived in seven cities and worked across three continents in roles spanning international finance, consulting, and technology.

One thread has stayed constant: working side by side with founders and CEOs to turn big ideas into strategy, story and execution. Most recently, she helped a 30-year-old industrial technology company expand into new global markets. Before then she was at the UN, the Economist, and a run of startups and scale-ups — building on her entrepreneurialism.

At Eklipse, she brings that experience together with a love of storytelling and systems-building — helping innovators turn vision into frameworks built to scale.

rene.zou@eklipses.io

Strategy
Positioning
Investor Alignment

Portrait of Matei Vulpe

Founding Partner · CCO

Matei Vulpe

Matei brings 6+ years of experience designing scalable brand systems and partnering with cross-functional executives and stakeholders. Matei leads design and internal functions at Eklipse.

Creative. Visual. Precise.

Matei is a creative strategist, brand builder and designer. His experience has been international from the beginning, in environments ranging from public affairs and professional services in the UK, France and Romania.

Across those worlds, one instinct has stayed constant: finding what makes an organisation, idea or person distinctive. His work combines creative direction with an unusually structured approach to brand, balancing visual instinct with governance, stakeholder needs and the wider purpose behind the story communicated. People often mistake him for an architect, and in many ways he is.

At Eklipse, he brings that creative precision together with a systems mindset, helping founders turn complex ideas into clear positioning, compelling narratives and identities built to carry their ambition.

matei.vulpe@eklipses.io

Brand Systems
Design
Stakeholder Alignment

Case studies

Leverage, restored

Prior work

012025

Industrial Tech

Heron Tech

An industrial technology company formed through the merger of two businesses with more than 70 years of combined history.

The challenge: Two companies with more than 70 years of combined history came together through a merger. They needed one culture, one identity, and a product portfolio that made sense as a whole.

What we did: We consolidated the product lines under one clear company identity and gave teams a shared framework for the product categories, so sales and engineering could pursue growth in the same direction.

022023

Consumer Tech

Plume

A school uniform recycling platform for sustainability-minded parents.

The challenge: Plume built a school uniform recycling platform for sustainability-minded parents. It was a compelling mission, but it wasn’t yet tied to a clear market position or a story investors could back.

What we did: We defined the category and sub-niches where Plume could win, then built a coalition of angel investors, family offices, and strategic buyers around that narrative.

032025

Research & Consulting

North of Now

An independent research and strategic communications consultancy, launched in 2025.

The challenge: Ben Hope was leaving a senior campaigns role inside a global communications group to go independent. He had a rare mix of market research and strategic communications experience, but no offer, no identity and no story to carry it into a crowded B2B market.

What we did: We scoped the consultancy into four clear capabilities, positioned it around agile, research-led thought leadership, and built the brand, logo, messaging and website that let a new firm launch with the authority of an established one, and win its first client, the Schools' Enterprise Association.

What's next for you?

Tell us where your company is heading. We'll help you get there with clarity, alignment and momentum.