Forum Radio: Philippe Teixeira da Mota

This episode of Forum Radio is a conversation with Philippe Teixeira da Mota in Lisbon. Phil is one of Europe's most active fintech investors and now co-founder and CIO of Shapers, a $75 million venture capital firm dedicated to backing early stage fintech entrepreneurs, launched in 2023 with his brother. Before he founded Shapers, Phil was the first employee at Hedosofia, an investment which he helped grow to 80 employees and where he deployed more than $2 billion across over 50 fintech companies worldwide and sat on the boards of a further 21, including Raisin and Viva Wallet, acquired by J.P. Morgan for an enormous sum. 

Phil has a great dynamic and optimistic energy, which he seems to enjoy channelling towards those young founders who are finding their way: 

"I think one of the most difficult things for founders is the transition from being a scrappy founder, when you have to do everything by yourself, then transition into a real CEO or into a C-level of an organization. This is where the name Shapers comes from. It's a beautiful definition – not ours, unfortunately. It's from Ray Dalio.  Shapers are people who can go from visualization to actualization. So it's not only people who can visualize or see the future or predict the future, but they make it happen by being very determined and very pragmatic leaders."

This episode was edited by Vanessa Heaney. 

Music by Alex Vickers