Luciano Tavares

Luciano Tavares is a Brazilian entrepreneur, investment professional, and angel investor best known as the founder and CEO of Magnetis, a digital investment-management and robo-advisory platform in Brazil. Bloomberg Línea reported in August 2023 that Magnetis was founded by Tavares, began operating in 2015, and was acquired by BTG Pactual as part of the bank’s strategy to expand its digital investment platforms.

Before Magnetis, Tavares built a long career in financial markets. Public bios state that he began in 1994 at Merrill Lynch in exchange-traded derivatives and became a vice president in Brazil. He later founded Nest Investimentos, a fund manager where he spent about a decade; that experience helped shape the idea for Magnetis by exposing demand for scalable wealth-management services.

He is also associated with Napkn Ventures, which he created to invest in technology startups. Public venture databases list him as a partner at Napkn Ventures alongside Manoel Lemos, with a stated focus on software and seed-stage technology companies. Gaebler describes Napkn’s thesis as investing in “outstanding entrepreneurs who want to change the world” and backing “big ideas, disruptive technologies and state-of-the-art execution.”

Tavares is a Fundação Getulio Vargas business-administration graduate and holds a master’s degree in Financial Engineering from Poli-USP, according to Investing.com and other public bios. He is also described as a CVM-accredited portfolio manager and CFP professional, with more than 25 years of experience in investments.

• Invests primarily as an angel/individual investor and through Napkn Ventures, with public records pointing to seed-stage technology deals.
• Focus areas include fintech, SaaS, banking, personal finance, financial services, trading platforms, SMB software, and emerging-market technology.
• Napkn Ventures’ public thesis emphasizes “outstanding entrepreneurs,” “big ideas,” “disruptive technologies,” and “state-of-the-art execution.”
• His operating thesis at Magnetis centers on technology-enabled, transparent, low-conflict financial advice; in a 2021 article, he argued for a fee-based model, transparent pricing, and returning rebates to clients.
• His portfolio and board/advisory history suggest a preference for Brazilian technology companies solving large market inefficiencies in finance, SMB operations, content, contracts, and credit.