Iberis Capital Research
Investment Thesis
Iberis Capital is a Portuguese private equity and venture capital manager founded in 2017 by four partners — Luís Quaresma, Diogo Chalbert, João Henriques, and David Pinheiro — who share a long working history together (Bain, BCG, Oxy Capital, Vodafone Group) and a shared vision for the investment opportunities available in the Portuguese economy. The firm's stated mission is to "partner with great founders that are solving big problems through technology," providing financial firepower, strategy and operations support, and network access across all stages of a company's journey. Iberis operates across four strategies — Growth and Buyout, Venture Capital, Yielding Investments, and Sustainable Investments — with the innovation and growth bucket (spanning early-stage and established companies) concentrating most of its assets under management.
Sector Focus
Iberis Capital's venture portfolio skews heavily toward AI/ML-enabled software, with recurring concentrations in fintech and payments (Feedzai, Fraudio, Paynest, Data4Deals), security and developer tooling (Probely, Jscrambler, Codacy), healthcare and healthtech (Inflammatix, SiPhox, Tonic App, Hope Care), aerospace and defense/space (Tekever, D-Orbit, Connected), robotics and industrial automation (Antoniq Robotics, KIT-AR), biotech (Carbocode, Avextra), marketing/adtech (Kevel, Mobrand, Primetag), energy (CorPower Ocean), and agriculture-adjacent robotics and foodtech (Antoniq Robotics, Tecmafoods). The firm explicitly favors technology-enabled businesses; there is limited public evidence of investment outside technology, and the core focus remains Portuguese-founded or Portuguese-headquartered teams, with selective exceptions (e.g., Avextra in Germany).
Stage Focus
The Venture Capital arm invests across the full startup lifecycle, from Pre-Seed through Series E and beyond, with the heaviest concentration of activity at Seed and Series A. The firm positions itself as able to support portfolio companies "through all steps of the journey," and its public portfolio includes roughly 20 Pre-Seed/Seed positions, over 20 Series A investments, and a smaller number of later-stage follow-ons (Series B through E) in its most successful companies (Feedzai, Inflammatix).
Check Size
Exact check sizes are not disclosed publicly. Given a portfolio of 50+ venture investments spanning Pre-Seed to Series E and total firm AUM of over €600M across all strategies (VC, growth/buyout, yielding, and sustainable investments), individual VC check sizes likely range from the low hundreds of thousands of euros at Pre-Seed to several million euros for Series A/B follow-ons.
Lead Tendency
Iberis frequently leads or co-leads rounds. Recent public examples include leading Hope Care's €6M Series A for remote patient monitoring (announced September 2026, with participation from Vieira de Matos – VDM Capital) and leading Antoniq Robotics' Seed round (2026) for an AI robotics company building embodied AI for agriculture. The firm also completed a significant growth capital increase into INFOS, a Portuguese vertical-software provider, advised by Clearwater.
Recent Activity
Iberis has been actively deploying capital in 2026: the Hope Care Series A (September 2026) and the Antoniq Robotics Seed round (May/June 2026) are the two most recent publicly confirmed venture investments. AUM has grown steadily since founding — from €40M in 2018 to over €600M by 2023–2026 — reflecting continued fundraising and deployment across all four strategies.
Portfolio Highlights
Notable exits/divestments include Probely (Series A, web application security scanner, now divested) and Inflammatix (Series E, acute infection diagnostics, now divested). Standout active portfolio companies span from later-stage successes like Feedzai (AI-powered fraud prevention, Series E), TEKEVER (maritime surveillance drones, Series B), and Codacy (automated code review, Series B) to earlier-stage bets like Hope Care, Antoniq Robotics, and Maven Pet (pet health monitoring).
Team
- Luís Quaresma, Partner — Founding Partner at Oxy Capital; Manager, European Private Equity Group at Bain & Co; Project Leader at BCG; Harvard Business School AMP; Católica Lisbon MBA; Nova FCT Computer Science
- Diogo Chalbert, Partner — Invited Professor of Private Equity at Nova SBE; Industrial Ops at ECS Capital; Principal at BCG; MIT Sloan MBA; Nova SBE Economics
- João Henriques, Partner — CFO Group Commercial & Enterprise and Chairman VF Ventures at Vodafone Group; CFO at Vodafone Portugal; Principal at BCG; INSEAD MBA; IST Electronics Engineering
- David Pinheiro, Partner — Associate at Oxy Capital; Teaching Assistant at Nova SBE; Nova SBE MSc in Finance and BSc in Economics
- Filipa Choon, CFO — Auditor at KPMG; Fiscal Post-Graduation at Universidade Católica Portuguesa; Nova SBE MSc in Finance
- Salvador Leite Castro, Head of Investor Relations — Head of Private Wealth at JLL; Universidade Lusíada de Lisboa BSc in Management
The broader team of ~30 associates, analysts, and support staff is recruited predominantly from Nova SBE, IST, and Católica Lisbon, with prior experience at BCG, Deloitte, EY, KPMG, and PwC.
Decision Process
Iberis operates a strict "one partner, one vote" governance model: investment and management decisions are made collectively by the four partners, no partner is unmovable or holds special decision rights (formal or informal), and the partners hold 100% of the firm's capital. This structure is explicitly marketed as a differentiator for interest alignment and independence.
Founder Preferences
Iberis backs technical and domain-expert founders building technology-enabled businesses, with a strong bias toward Portuguese-founded or Portuguese-headquartered teams. Portfolio founders skew toward technical backgrounds (engineering, computer science) building B2B software, deep tech, and marketplace businesses.
Geographic Focus
Primarily Portugal, with the firm headquartered in Lisbon (Av. Eng. Duarte Pacheco, 26-7º) and a second office in Porto (Av. da Boavista, 1223-8º). Selective investments extend elsewhere in Europe (e.g., Avextra in Germany), but the core deployment focus and sourcing network remain concentrated on the Portuguese startup ecosystem.