Joao Coelho Borges

João Coelho Borges is the CEO and Founding Partner of Draycott, a Lisbon-based diversified alternative asset manager. Draycott says its platform spans Private Equity & Growth, Real Estate, Venture Capital and Fund of Funds, and describes its mission as broadening Portuguese investors’ access to private-market strategies. The firm’s own history says João brought nearly two decades of investing experience into Draycott’s institutional platform in 2022; Portuguese press has described Draycott as founded by him in 2019, while Keyhaven’s 2024 announcement states that he founded Draycott SCR in 2020.

Before Draycott, Borges was a senior investor at Magnum Capital / Magnum Industrial Partners. Draycott says he led investments at Magnum Capital and has more than 25 years of private-equity experience across New York, London and Iberia. Keyhaven says he spent 17 years at Magnum Industrial Partners after five years at McKinsey & Company and Goldman Sachs M&A; Equilar’s summary adds that he joined Magnum in January 2007 after roles at Och-Ziff Capital Management’s private-equity team in London, Goldman Sachs M&A in London, and McKinsey in Lisbon, Madrid and Athens.

Borges is also a founder of Shilling VC, originally established in 2011 as a business-angel group by Hugo Gonçalves Pereira, António Casanova, Diogo da Silveira, João Coelho Borges, Juan Alvarez and Pedro Rutkowski. Shilling later became one of Portugal and Spain’s active early-stage venture investors, with portfolio companies including Unbabel, Uniplaces, BestTables, Rows, Coverflex and Sword Health.

His education is reported across several sources: Draycott lists a BSc in Business Administration & Economics from Richmond University in the UK; Católica-Lisbon lists him as having an MBA from Columbia Business School and a Master in Business Administration from Católica-Lisbon SBE; Equilar also reports an MBA from Columbia Business School and a MSc in Business from Universidade Católica de Lisboa and Universidad de Salamanca.

• Borges’s current Draycott platform invests across private equity/growth, real estate, venture capital and fund-of-funds strategies, with an emphasis on private markets, Iberian relationships and operational value creation.
• Draycott describes its edge as “the ability to find value where others see complexity,” with focus on medium-sized equity/buyout opportunities, high GP commitment, Iberian track record, ESG integration and performance-driven capital deployment.
• In private equity, Draycott’s portfolio page frames its approach as “Equity consolidation & Buyouts,” while its recent deals show a preference for category leaders, consolidation platforms and assets where operational improvement, M&A and scale can create value.
• Borges’s own Shilling profile says: “I like to make deals happen.” He says he focuses on bringing people together, finding creative deal structures, helping companies grow and investing across sectors, geographies and growth phases.
• Shilling’s founder-fund thesis looks for disruptive ideas, tech-driven solutions, strong balanced teams, scalability and clear business models with a path to profit.
• Shilling’s model is founder-community oriented: portfolio founders participate in fund profits, and the platform provides mentorship, fundraising preparation and introductions to international VC networks.
• Recent Draycott commentary around Verescence framed the deal as backing category leaders in resilient sectors and using “creativity, flexibility, and deep alignment” to build long-term value.