# James Fitzgerald

> James Fitzgerald is a seed investor at Valar Ventures backing FinTech and Financial Services. See 51 investments, check sizes, portfolio. Updated Aug 2026.

- Type: Angel Investor
- Fund: [Valar Ventures](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/valar-ventures)
- Location: New York, United States
- Total investments: 51
- Last investment: Feb 2026
- Lead investor: 65%
- Last updated: Aug 2026
- LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/pub/james-fitzgerald/10/b54/534
- X (Twitter): https://twitter.com/fitzgeraldlive
- Website: http://www.valar.com/about

James Fitzgerald is a seed investor at Valar Ventures in New York focused on FinTech and Financial Services. James Fitzgerald is based out of New York, New York, and is the founder and managing partner of Valar Ventures. James previously worked at Thiel Capital as a chief operating officer. James attended the University of California, Los Angeles—School of Law.

## Investment focus

### Industry

| Industry | Investments | Share |
| --- | --- | --- |
| FinTech | 23 | 45% |
| Financial Services | 23 | 45% |
| Payments | 8 | 16% |
| Finance | 7 | 14% |
| Banking | 6 | 12% |

54 industries tracked in total.

### Stage

| Stage | Investments | Share |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Seed | 14 | 27% |
| Series A | 10 | 20% |
| Series B | 9 | 18% |
| Series D | 4 | 8% |
| Venture - Series Unknown | 4 | 8% |

9 stages tracked in total.

### Country

| Country | Investments | Share |
| --- | --- | --- |
| United States | 14 | 27% |
| United Kingdom | 4 | 8% |
| France | 3 | 6% |
| Germany | 3 | 6% |
| India | 2 | 4% |

13 countries tracked in total.

## Investments

| Company | Description | Amount | Stage | Date | Website |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Bound | Bound is a fintech company that makes FX management easy for every business. The company was founded by Seth Phillips and Daniel Kindler in 2020. | $24.5M | Series A | Feb 04, 2026 |  |
| Octane | Octane provides a digital financing platform that enables consumers to obtain personalized loan offers for powersports vehicles, outdoor equipment, and similar lifestyle purchases, using soft credit checks that do not impact credit scores. The platform connects shoppers with dealer partners to support an end-to-end process from online rate checksto in-store financing and loan servicing. Octane also offers tools for dealers to close deals with digital approvals and paperless workflows while accommodating a range of credit profiles. The company’s services include programs tailored for different buyer types and integration features that simplify purchase decisions for both consumers and dealer partners. | $50M | Series F | Dec 15, 2025 |  |
| SILQ | SILQ is a platform dedicated to bridging economies and empowering businesses to trade, grow, and navigate new frontiers. By enabling seamless commerce, logistics, and finance, SILQ unlocks opportunities in emerging economies, fueling ambitions and redefining global trade.The name SILQ is a modern tribute to the legendary Silk Road—reimagined forthe digital age. The distinctive “Q” comes from Souq, the Arabic word for marketplace, symbolizing our commitment to fast, accessible, authentic, and reliable commerce.SILQ aspires to transform local products and manufacturers into global brands by connecting them with entrepreneurs in emerging markets across the Gulf, South Asia, and beyond. | $110M |  | Apr 09, 2025 |  |
| LiveFlow | Meet your finance team's new superpower: LiveFlow eliminates the endless hours of manual financial reporting that keep CFOs and their teams stuck instead of driving strategic value. By automating your month-end close process from days to minutes, LiveFlow acts like your highest-performing analyst who works 24/7 with perfect accuracy. Notonly does this free your team from the monthly close chaos, but it also means you can finally focus on what you actually became a CFO for – delivering insights that move your business forward. | $13.5M | Series A | Sep 24, 2024 |  |
| Octane | Octane provides a digital financing platform that enables consumers to obtain personalized loan offers for powersports vehicles, outdoor equipment, and similar lifestyle purchases, using soft credit checks that do not impact credit scores. The platform connects shoppers with dealer partners to support an end-to-end process from online rate checksto in-store financing and loan servicing. Octane also offers tools for dealers to close deals with digital approvals and paperless workflows while accommodating a range of credit profiles. The company’s services include programs tailored for different buyer types and integration features that simplify purchase decisions for both consumers and dealer partners. | $50M | Series E | Aug 06, 2024 |  |
| Hero | Hero is a B2B payments and financing platform, offer direct online payment experience and receive your money immediately. | $12.1M | Series A | Jun 20, 2024 |  |
| MAJORITY | MAJORITY is the first digital financial service dedicated to serving migrants worldwide. For $5 a month, MAJORITY members in the U.S. receive an FDIC-secured account, VISA® debit card, use of more than 55,000 ATMs across North America, remittance and international calling, native language advisors, and access to our network of community meet-upspaces, local discounts and events. With MAJORITY, there are never overdraft fees or minimum balance requirements. MAJORITY was started in Sweden by a diverse team of banking, fintech, payments, and telecom executives serving immigrant communities globally for the last 15 years. MAJORITY’s U.S. headquarters are in Houston, Texas. | $29M | Series B | May 22, 2024 |  |
| Embed | Embed is a Payments Infrastructure-as-a-Service provider built for software platforms. We enable companies to integrate embedded payments and complex money flows directly into their products—without needing a financial license.As embedded finance becomes the norm, platforms can unlock new revenue and better user experiences by owning the fullpayment lifecycle. Embed makes this possible with a fully licensed, developer-first platform that unifies merchant onboarding, payment orchestration, compliance, and reconciliation.Unlike legacy processors, Embed gives platforms full control over user experience, data, and economics. With low-code APIs, flexible architecture, and a white-label solution, platforms can launch fast—often in under 24 hours—and scale confidently across Europe and soon the UK.Licensed by the Dutch Central Bank and passported across the EEA, Embed is building the payment infrastructure we always wished existed—for the platforms shaping the future. | $5.4M | Seed | Mar 15, 2024 |  |
| Monite | Monite is an AI-powered Embedded AR/AP provider – it lets SMB platforms (vSaaS, payment providers, fintechs) embed AR/invoicing, AP automation/bill pay & cashflow management into their interface in 3-5 weeks. We power dozens of platforms across US, EU, and other regions. We are backed by Valar Ventures, ThirdPrime, P72,s16,Audeo, founders of Klarna & Nium, and executives from Plaid, PayPal & Square. | $6M | Seed | Feb 19, 2024 |  |
| Abbey Cross | B2B, Trading and Compliance Venue for deliverable (think payments) Emerging Market Currencies. Linking Payments banks to the suppliers of EM Trading and Settlement services | $6.5M | Seed | Dec 13, 2023 |  |

10 of 51 investments shown.

## Co-investors
- [Gaingels](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/gaing) — VC Fund, 5 deals together
- [Presight Capital](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/presight-capital) — VC Fund, 5 deals together
- [Third Prime](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/third-prime) — VC Fund, 5 deals together
- [Global Founders Capital](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/global-founders-capital) — VC Fund, 4 deals together
- [Heartcore Capital](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/heartcore-capital) — VC Fund, 4 deals together
- [Tiger Global Management](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/tiger-global) — VC Fund, 4 deals together

## About Valar Ventures

VC Fund · New York, United States

Valar Ventures is a venture capital firm backed by Peter Thiel. Valar partners with entrepreneurs globally and believes that an increasing number of transformative technology companies will be started outside of Silicon Valley, and that the founders of those companies will benefit from having a partner that understands their unique challenges andopportunities.

5 contacts available at Valar Ventures.

| Name | Title | Profile |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Alison Berger | CFO | https://shizune.co/investors/profile/alison-berger-a1ac |
| Andrew McCormack | Founding and General Partner | https://shizune.co/investors/profile/andrew-mccormack |
| Elizabeth Klein | General Counsel | https://shizune.co/investors/profile/elizabeth-klein |
| Erin Ashley Porterfield | Associate | https://shizune.co/investors/profile/erin-ashley-porterfield |
| James Fitzgerald | Founding Partner | https://shizune.co/investors/profile/james-fitzgerald |

## Similar investors

### Similar stage
- [Antler](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/antler-be9c) — VC Fund
- [Alumni Ventures](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/alumni-ventures-group) — VC Fund
- [Right Side Capital Management](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/right-side-capital-management) — VC Fund

## FAQ

### What does James Fitzgerald invest in?

James Fitzgerald invests primarily in FinTech, Financial Services and Payments startups, most often at Seed and Series A stage. Most of the 51 investments tracked by Shizune back companies in United States. The Investment Focus section breaks down every industry, stage and country in the portfolio.

### When did James Fitzgerald last invest?

The most recent investment recorded for James Fitzgerald closed in Feb 2026. Shizune tracks 51 investments in total for this profile, including round sizes, stages and portfolio companies, all sourced from confirmed public funding rounds and refreshed monthly.

### Is Shizune's investor data accurate?

Yes — every stat on this profile is calculated from confirmed public funding rounds monitored across hundreds of sources since 2020. This profile was last refreshed in Aug 2026 and is updated monthly. Spotted something off? Use the “Suggest an edit” link near the top of the page.

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