Exit Club: a community for entrepreneurs post-exit

The birth of Exit Club

Louis Debouzy never thought he would be founding Exit Club. The Paris-based, invitation-only organisation brings together entrepreneurs who have successfully exited their business, often finding themselves with significant sums of money and a hole in their lives where their business and passions used to be. 

He had the idea shortly after selling his first business, Amabilis, in July 2022 – the year after he was named on Forbes’ 30 Under 30 list. “As soon as I exited, I had mixed feelings,” he says. “Of course, I had wanted to sell. And when the money landed in my bank account I was very happy – for, maybe, a few seconds.

“Then I experienced a profound sense of emptiness, of identity loss.” Sympathy was hard to come by. “People would say, ‘You’re rich now, you sold your company – what are you complaining about?’ And, yes, maybe that’s true. But I genuinely experienced this feeling of emptiness.”

In order to find an empathetic group of peers, he founded Exit Club, which now has 300 members. They meet in person and speak frequently; nobody pays any fees. It is a community of like-minded entrepreneurs who have exited and, Debouzy explains, cannot find support elsewhere.

“Many of us have real, physical symptoms following exiting. Panic attacks. Palpitations. Lack of sleep. Breathing problems. It’s very common.” He says joining Exit Club is a type of therapy.

Debouzy is not, however, looking for sympathy. Which is even more remarkable, given his own personal circumstances. He was diagnosed with a debilitating and incurable muscular disease when he was eight, and has been wheelchair-bound since he was 21. In fact, the first phase of his entrepreneurial career, and his exit, aged 30, were built around his personal circumstances. 

As a young adult who needed help in order to get out of bed, go to the bathroom or get in his wheelchair, he found himself “shocked” by the level of care in France. Carers would frequently not turn up when they were supposed to: he remembers numerous days when he was stuck in bed, unable to move, until the afternoon. He wouldn’t be able to go out in the evenings because nobody could provide help when he returned.

Choosing to exit

Amabilis was based on providing solutions in this sector; when he sold it, it had 250 employees. Debouzy says his disability was a driving factor in his success. “I don’t like to say, ‘Louis Debouzy is a guy in a wheelchair’. But, I admit, disability nurtures an entrepreneurial mindset. When you can’t open a door, can’t cut your meat, or other basic things, you have to find alternative solutions. And that is the definition of an entrepreneur: someone who finds solutions to resolve a problem that needs addressing.”

Debouzy says he did not have a specific exit plan. He had originally intended to run Amabilis indefinitely, but was driven to sell because of a combination of a good offer, a desire to do something else, and the challenge of managing a labour-intensive business based on critical care (“If your employee doesn’t turn up, your client might die”). Debouzy says that French labour laws, which meant he could not employ freelancers, also played a part.   

Exit Club provides much more than an opportunity for peer-to-peer empathy and advice: there are significant practical purposes as well, says Debouzy. Many entrepreneurs who exit have never come across wealth management, family offices, or given any consideration to how to invest personal wealth. “Many people, when they exit, do not even know what private equity is. They have been so focused on their own business that there is a lack of knowledge.”

The launch of Augment

Exit Club organises practical advice and guidance along with social events. But there is no intention for it to become a profit-making business. Debouzy has now launched his newest enterprise, Augment, an investment club that, he says, will invest in “technologies that make humans smarter, faster and stronger”. Augment will focus on technology around longevity and health tech, and developments in AI with uses in military and space tech, all bound together by a theme of advancements allowing humans to do what was not previously possible.  

One of the companies Augment has invested in, Figure AI, designs humanoid robots powered by AI, “with autonomy, balance, and purpose”. Another, Altos Labs, is a pioneer in the field of cellular rejuvenation, reprogramming aged cells to regain youthful function.

Debouzy says Augment, which was founded in 2025, was born out of reflection on his own physical state: “I am an augmented human myself. I have a wheelchair. I have a computer. I have a phone. I don’t think I would have been able to build a business a hundred years ago.”

He is currently raising money from like-minded individuals to invest in platforms within these verticals. At this early stage, with Augment only a few months old, Debouzy is not in a position to give further details. Like most successful entrepreneurs, however, he is not the kind of person to allow obstacles to get in the way of his next venture.