Thibaud Sultan
Thibaud Sultan (born 1990, Laval, France) is a French entrepreneur and electronic music producer.1 He is the co-founder and CEO of Obside, an AI-powered trading automation platform he founded in April 2018 with Benjamin Sultan and Florent Poux.2 Under the stage name THBD, he produces chill house and deep house music and has accumulated over 100 million streams on his debut single "Good For You."6 In April 2026, Sultan and his co-founders were selected for the Canopy Spring 2026 cohort at Founders, Inc. in San Francisco, one of 100 startups chosen from over 6,500 applicants.8
Early life and education
Sultan was born in 1990 in Laval, a city in the Mayenne department of western France.6 He earned a Licence en Droit (law degree) from the Universite du Maine-Le Mans-Laval before completing a Master en Droit des affaires (Master in Business Law) at the Universite Paris 1 Pantheon-Sorbonne.1
His interest in music began in childhood, when he received his first radio player. Initially drawn to R&B, hip-hop, and funk, he discovered electronic music through UK garage and early house. He began experimenting with vinyl turntable decks at age 12 and progressed to DJing at various venues.6
Legal career
After completing his law studies, Sultan worked as a juriste (legal counsel) at the Cabinet de Maitre Frederic Gourdain in Paris from 2016 to 2017, specializing in corporate law, criminal business law, and contract law.1 He then moved to B&R Associes - Avocats, a Paris law firm, where he practiced from 2017 to 2018 in areas including corporate law, tax law, commercial law, and civil enforcement procedures.1
Obside
Sultan co-founded Obside in April 2018 in Laval alongside Benjamin Sultan and Florent Poux.2 FinTech Futures described Sultan as a "legal expert," Benjamin Sultan as a "trader," and Poux as an "engineer."3 Sultan has served as CEO since the company's founding, while Benjamin Sultan is CPO and Poux is CTO.12
The platform allows traders to automate decisions on financial markets by translating plain-language instructions into executable trading logic. A user can specify a condition such as "buy if this stock drops for three consecutive days," and Obside converts it into an automated strategy without requiring coding knowledge.3
Funding
In January 2026, Obside closed a seed round of approximately 500,000 euros from business angels in France and abroad, including the Symbiose 53 network.210 The company stated the funds would be used to hire engineers and accelerate its international rollout.3
Bitget partnership and AI Trading Arena
In March 2026, Obside announced a partnership with Bitget, the cryptocurrency exchange, to bring its AI Trading Arena to Bitget's copy trading platform.4 The AI Trading Arena is a live environment developed by Obside in which AI models trade real markets autonomously using real-time data. Through the partnership, Bitget users can follow and copy AI-driven trading strategies that have been tested through actual market conditions. At launch, copy trading covered Bitcoin (BTCUSDT), gold (XAUUSDT), and Nvidia (NVDAUSDT).4 Select AI traders in the Arena had delivered net performance exceeding 70 percent over multiple months at the time of announcement, according to the press release.4
Canopy Spring 2026
In April 2026, Sultan, Benjamin Sultan, and Poux traveled from Laval to San Francisco after Obside was selected for the Canopy Spring 2026 cohort at Founders, Inc.9 The program received over 6,500 applications and accepted 100 startups for an intensive five-week residency at the Founders, Inc. campus at Fort Mason.8 In a LinkedIn post dated April 14, 2026, Sultan wrote, in French, that the team had applied just one week before receiving a call from the program's co-founder telling them to be in San Francisco the following Wednesday.9
Music career
Sultan has released music under the stage name THBD since December 2014.1 His style blends piano with electronic sounds and R&B vocals, drawing on his early influences from UK garage and house music.6
His debut single "Good For You," released in 2014, went viral and has surpassed 100 million plays across streaming platforms, including over 1 million plays on SoundCloud alone.613 In 2017, he collaborated with UK artist Pipa Moran on "Lost In The Night," which has accumulated over 304,000 plays on SoundCloud and over 1.1 million streams on Spotify.67
THBD has released 33 tracks and an album titled "Memories" in 2022.6 He has 67,500 followers on SoundCloud and approximately 15,500 monthly listeners on Spotify as of April 2026.67 His music is published under a Creative Commons Attribution license, which has contributed to its wide distribution on YouTube as royalty-free background music.13
Personal life
Sultan describes himself as "Entrepreneur, ex-lawyer, music producer" and lists his interests as "art, tech, finance and building products that people love."5 His X (formerly Twitter) bio lists his interests as "AI - Breakdance - INTP."11 He is married to an artist who specializes in painting, and the couple has two children.6
References
- Thibaud Sultan — LinkedIn Profile(accessed Apr 25, 2026)
- Exclusive: Obside lands €500K to let anyone automate stock trades — TFN(accessed Apr 25, 2026)
- ICYMI fintech funding round-up: Klearly, PhotonPay, Arkk and more — FinTech Futures(accessed Apr 25, 2026)
- Bitget and Obside Partner to Launch Live AI Trading Arena for Copy Trading — GlobeNewsWire(accessed Apr 25, 2026)
- Thibaud Sultan | CEO at Obside — F6S