Stephan Morais

Stephan Morais (Stephan Godinho Lopes de Moraes, born October 27, 1973, in London, England) is a Portuguese British investor.

Morais is an engineer by training, having graduated from Instituto Superior Técnico in 1996 with a civil engineering degree. Departing from his field of study, he completed an MBA on private equity and venture capital at Harvard Business School and went on to work in management, consulting, banking and investment.

In 2019, he co-founded Indico Capital Partners, a venture capital firm, of which he is the managing general partner.

Early life and education Morais, the son of Portuguese lawyers, was born in London, England, and grew up in Lisbon, Portugal, where he attended and .

A civil engineer, Morais graduated in 1996 from the Instituto Superior Técnico - University of Lisbon in Lisbon, having spent the last semester at the École Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées in Paris, France. In 2000 he was accepted for the MBA program of Harvard Business School. He graduated in 2002, specialising in private equity and venture capital and being awarded a Sainsbury Management Fellowship.

Career

Morais initiated his career at the Halcrow Group Limited in the UK, working in privatization projects on behalf of multilateral agencies in Mozambique, Pakistan, Panama and Chile. He later moved permanently to London, joining Arthur Andersen Business Consulting. He co-founded a London-based startup during the dotcom boom focusing on water trading, the Waterexchange.

In 2010, Morais joined Portugal's largest bank, Grupo Caixa Geral de Depósitos, where he was appointed as board member and deputy CEO of a new African investment bank based in Mozambique, BNI - Banco Nacional de Investimento, a partnership between Portuguese Caixa and the Mozambican government. He also worked as executive director of Caixa Capital.

While at Caixa, Morais led investments in most major Portuguese and global startups, such as Farfetch, Unbabel, Uniplaces, D-Orbit, amongst others, that raised significant capital in Silicon Valley and London.

Morais has worked as a non-executive director at Crimson Investment Management, and is a former Venture Capital Council Member at Invest Europe, Council Member of the International Venture Club, Chairman of the European Venture Finance Network and a jury at numerous entrepreneurship and investment awards.

In 2020, Indico was chosen by Google for Startups as the partner fund for their accelerator program, which was launched in the same year and is now on its 3rd edition. In 2022, a climate-action strategy was launched with the Indico Blue Fund, that backs sustainable blue economy startups and SMEs based in Portugal.

Since 2019, Indico has invested 35 million euros in 30 companies, including Tier, Anchorage Digital, Eleos insurance and Remote, which have raised more than 1.5 billion euros from global investors, making it the leading independent venture capital fund in Portugal. Morais is currently the managing general partner at Indico Capital Partners. 2009 DME Award - Design management Europe 2009 National Design Award - "Sena da Silva" Presented by the Portuguese Design Center and the President of the Portuguese Republic 2010 Nominated Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum