Sheel Mohnot

Mohnot’s parents immigrated to the United States from India, and his father is a chemical engineer. He considers Pittsburgh his home; his X handle “pitdesi,” originally his first AOLAOLAOL is an American internet brand offering a news portal, email, and membership services. Its history dates to an online-services company founded in 1985.Open the full entry screen name, combines “Pittsburgh” and “desi.”⁠[1]

He attended Carnegie Mellon UniversityCarnegie Mellon UniversityCarnegie Mellon University (CMU) is a private research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It grew out of the Carnegie Technical Schools, founded with funding from Andrew Carnegie in 1900, which were renamed the Carnegie Institute of Technology in 1912 and took the present name after merging with the Mellon Institute in 1967. The university is known for computer science, robotics, engineering, and the arts, and has campuses in Qatar, Silicon Valley, and Rwanda. As of September 2025, it enrolled 16,582 students. Its current president is Farnam Jahanian. On September 30, 2026, the university announced a $3 billion gift from Ken Griffin and plans to build a new campus in Miami.Open the full entry, where he started a Students in Free Enterprise (SIFE) club and used it to help senior citizens learn to use computers.⁠[1]

After graduating, Mohnot worked briefly as a consultant, then turned down a place in Columbia’s MBA program to join Indicorps, a grassroots service organization in India, taking an assignment with the microlending platform Kiva for 3,000 rupees a month.⁠[1]

He recalled reaching a rural Kiva borrower by public bus and on the back of a stranger’s motorcycle, which showed him how high the cost of serving a single borrower was; he traces the start of his fintech thesis to that experience: “So many things we do with money require human intervention but could be made much more convenient.”⁠[1]

FeeFighters (formerly TransFS), which Mohnot co-founded, was a Chicago-based comparison site for credit card processors that also offered a payment gateway called Samurai, backed by $1.6 million in venture funding from investors including 500 Startups. On March 23, 2012, the roughly three-year-old company announced it had been acquired by Groupon, with most of its team moving to Groupon.⁠[2][3][4]

After the acquisition Mohnot became vice president of business development at Groupon; he said the technology developed at FeeFighters became Groupon Payments, launched shortly afterward.⁠[3]

In 2013 Mohnot co-founded Innovative Auctions, a private auction site that he said reached revenues in the “hundreds of millions”; the company was later sold.⁠[3][1]

Mohnot was a partner at 500 Startups, where he raised and ran a dedicated fintech fund and helped build its accelerator; there he met his future partner Jake Gibson. At 500 Startups he backed Chipper and Albert at $2.5 million valuations.⁠[5][6]

Before BTV, he and Gibson had invested in more than 100 fintech companies through vehicles including 500 Fintech. His name appears early on the cap tables of companies including Albert, Unit, Flexport, Ramp, Kin and MercuryMercury (fintech company)Mercury is an American fintech company founded in 2017 by Immad Akhund, Jason Zhang and Max Tagher; it launched account services for businesses in 2019. Its platform combines financial services provided by partner banks with software for bills, invoices and expense management. Mercury itself remains a fintech company; the proposed Mercury Bank, N.A. should be distinguished from the current partner-bank model.Open the full entry.⁠[3][1]

In November 2019 Mohnot and NerdWallet co-founder Jake Gibson founded Better Tomorrow Ventures (BTV), a San Francisco-based early-stage venture firm focused on fintech, with Mohnot as co-founder and general partner.⁠[3][7]

BTV’s first fund held its first close in December 2019 with capital from Cendana Capital and individuals, and closed in 2020 at $75 million, above its original $60 million target. Mohnot said that because both partners were founders and the firm invested only in fintech, they tended to understand what founders were building better than generalist investors.⁠[6]

In February 2022 BTV closed a $225 million second fund, allocating $150 million to pre-seed and seed startups and $75 million to an opportunity fund for follow-on investments; it planned about 30 investments with checks of $500,000 to $3 million. From its first fund BTV had led 22 investments and made 10 non-lead investments.⁠[3]

Mohnot said, “Seed is where founders need the most support, and we love being the first call.”⁠[3]

In May 2023 BTV launched The Mint, a three-month fintech accelerator in San Francisco that invests $500,000 for 10% equity in each of six to ten startups per cohort.⁠[5]

Explaining the program, Mohnot said, “YC is built for scale. The advice is a lot like one size fits all,” adding that fintech had enough unique aspects to warrant something distinct.⁠[5]

By February 2025 Mohnot had more than 150,000 followers on X. He said he had joined Twitter long before but became active only after the early pandemic, when he was active on Clubhouse and built up about 3.3 million followers there.⁠[4]

At the time BTV had about $300 million under management and had backed companies including AngelListAngelListAngelList is a startup investment platform company based in San Francisco, United States. Founded in 2010 by Naval Ravikant and Babak Nivi, it began as a mailing list recommending startups to angel investors, went on to launch online fundraising, Syndicates (co-investing), rolling funds, and other products, and later shifted into a fund administration and back-office services platform for venture capital funds and private markets.Open the full entry, Charlie, Coast and Unit; Mohnot had personally invested as an angel for more than a decade in companies including Flexport, Ironclad, Ethos Insurance and Apartment List. He said BTV regards vertical SaaS companies and B2B marketplaces as fintech companies as well.⁠[4]

In October 2025 BTV closed a $140 million third fund, planning to invest in 30 to 35 companies with checks of $500,000 to $3.5 million; the $75 million opportunity fund raised alongside its second fund had not been drawn on.⁠[8]

Mohnot said the firm had planned a smaller fund this time: “In 2021, things went super overboard.” He sees accounting as an application for AI, and BTV had backed the accounting startups Basis, Layer and InScope.⁠[8]

BTV now leads pre-seed and seed rounds with checks of $500,000 to $4 million.⁠[7]

Better Tomorrow Ventures: Official website: https://btv.vc/ (opens in a new window).⁠[7]

X: Public account: https://x.com/pitdesi (opens in a new window).⁠[1][4]

LinkedInLinkedInLinkedIn is a social networking platform for professionals. It was founded in 2002 by Reid Hoffman and others, launched in 2003, and listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 2011; after Microsoft acquired it for approximately $26.2 billion in 2016, it became a wholly owned Microsoft subsidiary. Its revenue comes from membership subscriptions, advertising, and recruitment solutions.Open the full entry: Public profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/smohnot/ (opens in a new window).⁠[7]