About

Built. Scaled. Sold. Twice.

Twice-exited founder, C-level executive and strategic advisor. For more than 25 years Nikos Patsis has worked where technology meets capital, building and financing AI and fintech businesses across Europe, the Americas, Africa and the Middle East. DisruptIQ is where that experience works for our clients.

Nikos Patsis is an engineer by training who has worked with AI since his first degree. At the National Technical University of Athens his prize winning thesis applied distributed AI to an electricity network. At Harvard, on a full fellowship, he earned an MS and a PhD in Engineering Sciences, specialising in financial engineering.

He began on the capital side: quantitative analysis and then operations as COO at a private equity firm in New York, followed by risk management for a global macro hedge fund in Bermuda.

In 2001 he founded Voiceweb, Greece's first conversational AI company, and led it as CEO for more than twenty years, to live deployments for some 50 enterprise clients in 30 countries and on to its sale. In parallel he co-founded Televida, scaled across six Central American countries and sold as a group in 2012. He then led business development at Viva Wallet and, as COO of Printec Payments, secured its licence as a payment institution.

Having led companies as CEO and from most other seats in the C-suite, he knows which problems an advisor should solve and which belong to the team. At DisruptIQ he focuses where he adds the most value: strategy, international expansion, product market fit, fundraising and the evaluation of technology investments.

Career

Two disciplines, one career.

1990Technology
National Technical University of Athens
Electrical engineering. Prize winning thesis applying distributed AI to the management of an electricity distribution network.
1990–1997Capital
Harvard University
MS and PhD in Engineering Sciences (Financial Engineering) on a full Harvard fellowship. Dissertation on pricing American-style exotic options using ordinal optimisation.
1994–1997Capital
Fletcher Asset Management, New York
Director of Quantitative Analysis, then Chief Operating Officer of a private equity firm. Designed and priced structured securities, coordinated over $35M of investments and raised over $10M of fund capital.
1997–2000Capital
Nexus Capital, Bermuda
Director of Risk Management at a global macro hedge fund, managing risk on a multibillion-dollar portfolio of equities, fixed income and currencies.
2005–2012Technology
Televida, co-founder and board member
Mobile services started in Guatemala and grew into El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama and Costa Rica, with Claro, Movistar, Tigo and Digicel. Sold to a competitor as a group in 2012.
2001–2022Technology
Voiceweb, founder and CEO
Greece's first conversational AI company. Some 50 enterprise clients in 30 countries across Europe, Africa and the Middle East, including Vodafone, MTN Group, Orange, Ooredoo, Airtel, Cosmote, Raiffeisen Bank, National Bank of Greece, Piraeus Bank, Macquarie Bank, First Data, Avaya and Village Roadshow, with 80% of revenue earned outside Greece. Acquired a competitor to accelerate growth. Raised capital from a family office and a private equity fund. Exited in 2023.
2023Both
Viva Wallet, VP of Business Development
European payments fintech, partially acquired by J.P. Morgan. Led M&A, US market entry and strategic partnerships with hardware vendors, software vendors and marketplaces.
2023–2025Both
Printec Payments, Chief Operating Officer
Secured Bank of Greece authorisation as a payment institution in June 2025, after reorganising a licensing effort that had failed for more than three years before he joined. Led strategy, product, technology and the operating model for a new payments business within a banking technology group serving 16 European countries.
2024–2025Capital
European Innovation Council, Senior Advisor
Advised the Tech to Market venture building programme on fundraising strategy and business model design for more than 35 deep technology projects moving from research to market.
2023–todayBoth
DisruptIQ, founder and CEO
Advises founders on strategy, fundraising and international expansion, investors on sourcing, evaluating and overseeing technology investments, and leadership teams on AI implementation. Recent work includes a €40M growth equity round, a cross-border technology licence, a fractional Chief Strategy Officer role for a clinical AI company, and AI programmes in legal services, banking, transport and life sciences. Built the DisruptIQ portfolio of 12 investments in frontier AI, robotics, space, energy and fintech.