Investor · Builder · Professional yes-man

SHEEL
MOHNOT.

I invest in the earliest stages of fintech, root very loudly for founders, and collect stories that sound made up.

Build with BTV Skip to the weird stuff ↓
YES!
Sheel Mohnot smiling

↳ Pittsburgh made.
San Francisco based.

EVERYTHING IS FINTECH✦EARLY-STAGE OPTIMIST✦BOARD-GAME NERD✦VERY PRONOID✦EVERYTHING IS FINTECH✦EARLY-STAGE OPTIMIST✦BOARD-GAME NERD✦VERY PRONOID✦

THE SHORT VERSION

Money is a tool.
Optimism is a strategy.
Curiosity is the cheat code.

I’m a co-founder and General Partner at Better Tomorrow Ventures. We lead pre-seed and seed rounds in fintech companies globally—and we take a delightfully broad view of what “fintech” means.

Before investing, I built companies. That means I care about the messy, practical stuff: distribution, hiring, pivots, the next round, and being useful when the slide deck stops being useful.

$450Mapprox. BTV assets under management
2fintech exits before becoming a VC
∞things that eventually become fintech

WORK, IN REVERSE

Builder first.
Investor second.

NOW

Better Tomorrow Ventures

Co-founder and GP of a seed-stage fund for the companies building the future of fintech. We lead rounds, move quickly, and try to be the call founders actually want to make.

Meet BTV
2015

500 FinTech

Ran the fintech fund and accelerator. Led early rounds in Albert, Kin, Chipper Cash, Indio, and a crew of other ambitious companies.

500 Global
2012

FeeFighters → Groupon

Built a Stripe-like payments product called Samurai. Sold it before launch, moved to San Francisco, and started angel investing.

The old news
ALSO

The Pitch, Thistle & wacky domains

Co-created a podcast because Shark Tank felt too fake. Co-founded a meal-delivery company. Built a high-stakes auction business. Careers should have plot twists.

Listen to The Pitch

LATELY

New & interesting.

A fund, a few ideas, and conversations for your next walk.

01
THE BIG UPDATE

$140M for BTV III

A third fund and roughly $450M in total assets—all still in on fintech, pre-seed, and seed.

Read the announcement02
LATEST CONVERSATION

Do hard things worth writing about

On specialization, portfolio construction, emerging markets, and the asset class that chooses you.

Listen on Apple Podcasts03
CURRENT THESIS

Everything is fintech

Vertical software and marketplaces become financial businesses. AI makes the opportunity set even stranger—and much larger.

Read the TechCrunch Q&A

LIFE OUTSIDE THE SPREADSHEET

Yes is my default.

I’m generally happy, extremely curious, and pronoid: convinced the universe might be conspiring in my favor.

UNLIKELY LOVE STORY

Got legally married in the Taco Bell metaverse.

Yes, really

SCREEN TIME

Appeared in a Justin Bieber video.

TABLETOP TASTE

Acquire, Codenames, Coup, Power Grid, Twilight Struggle.

I once tried to invent an airline board game called Flug. Turns out making board games is hard.

THE VERY SCIENTIFIC

Favorite things index

01 Cuisines +

South Indian, pizza, North Indian, Thai, Mexican, Levantine, Sichuan, Ethiopian, Vietnamese, Cantonese. In that order—for now.

02 Places +

Slovenia, Budapest, Georgia, and Laos deserve more love. Brazil, New Zealand, Rwanda, Namibia, and Ecuador remain on the list.

03 Comedy +

Curb Your Enthusiasm, Nathan For You, Sacha Baron Cohen, The Inbetweeners. Let me learn and cringe at the same time.

04 Dislikes +

Paper straws. Loud motorcycles. Pennies. A tight, considered list.

WORDS TO LIVE BY

“You have to be willing to subject yourself to failure, to be bad, to fall on your head and do it again.”

— Laird Hamilton, on failing to win