Shapers Research
Investment Thesis
Shapers is a hyper-focused, early-stage venture capital fund investing exclusively in fintech founders across Europe. Founded in 2022 and launched publicly with its Fund I in September 2025, the firm is built by brothers Philippe and Thomas Teixeira da Mota, who set out to build a European counterpart to specialist US fintech funds like Ribbit Capital. Their stated philosophy is "do one thing, and do it really well": early-stage fintech investing, leveraging deep personal networks in the sector rather than a broad generalist mandate. The firm defines fintech broadly and is relatively more bullish on B2B than B2C, on the view that much of the obvious B2C fintech opportunity in Europe has already been built.
Sector Focus
Shapers concentrates on four core areas within fintech: wealth management, payments, regtech (particularly AI-driven compliance and KYC/AML tooling), and crypto/stablecoins. The firm is spending increasing time in stablecoins and on-chain settlement. It does not shy away from less trendy fintech sub-sectors and will look at both B2B and B2C within its mandate.
Stage Focus
Shapers can invest from pre-seed through Series B, but its stated sweet spot is seed and Series A, typically entering once a startup has an MVP and early customers and needs capital to scale across Europe.
Check Size
Typical investment size is up to $5M per company, scaled to round stage and startup needs. As a $75M fund, Shapers positions itself as highly collaborative: it will lead or co-lead rounds when it makes sense but frequently participates alongside other funds and angels, and reserves capital to follow on in later rounds of its strongest companies.
Lead Tendency
Public deal data shows Shapers participating in the large majority of its rounds, with occasional co-leads (e.g., co-leading Diligent AI's seed round with Speedinvest in March 2026). This matches the founders' own description of the fund as collaborative by design given its size.
Recent Activity
Fund I launched publicly in September 2025 at $75M, aimed at Europe's most promising fintech startups with checks of up to $5M. As of November 2025 the firm had over $65M deployed or committed and was already thinking about a follow-on fund. Since launch the fund has been steadily active: recent rounds include Chift's Series A (September 2026), Talentir's seed (June 2026), Compri's seed (June 2026), Diligent AI's $2.5M seed co-led with Speedinvest (March 2026), and Klearly's $14M Series A backed by PayPal Ventures (January 2026).
Portfolio Highlights
Notable portfolio companies include Finary (French wealth-tracking app, raised a ~$29M Series B in September 2025 led by PayPal Ventures), Klearly (Amsterdam-based hospitality payments platform backed by PayPal Ventures), Saturn (London-based AI platform for financial advisers, Series A), Ferovinum (London-based supply-chain financing for the wine and spirits trade), Chift (Brussels-based unified API for financial and accounting tool integrations, Series A led by BlackFin Capital Partners), Deblock (French crypto-native neobank), Diligent AI (Y Combinator-backed AI agents for KYC/AML compliance), and Talentir (payout infrastructure). One clean exit to date: Ember, a UK tax and bookkeeping platform, was acquired by Starling Bank in August 2025.
Team
- Philippe Teixeira da Mota, Co-Founder — Began his career in investment banking at J.P. Morgan (London and San Francisco) before spending nearly a decade at Hedosophia, co-leading investments in category-defining fintech companies including Wise, Qonto, N26, and Bitpanda.
- Thomas Teixeira da Mota, Co-Founder — Spent the majority of his career at Bain & Company, working on financial-sector and private equity projects, before co-founding Shapers with his brother.
Decision Process
A tight partnership model: the two co-founder brothers plus a small core team drive both thematic, in-house sourcing and opportunistic sourcing via personal networks and the firm's LP base.
Founder Preferences
Shapers prioritizes exceptional individual talent, assessing founder drive (vision, ambition, competitiveness) as a critical signal, alongside conviction that the target market is large enough to support one or more giant outcomes.
Geographic Focus
Pan-European, with the UK, France, and Benelux as active markets to date, plus deals in Germany, the Netherlands, and Austria.
LP Base
A distinctive feature of the fund is its LP base of 60+ fintech founders and operators, described by the founders as central both to sourcing (several first investments came via direct LP referrals) and to supporting portfolio companies with customers, partners, and talent.