Luca Cartechini

Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer Circeus

Last Reviewed: September 26, 2026

Executive Summary

Luca Cartechini is the co-founder and chief executive of Circeus, a London company that acquires software businesses and runs them together on a shared AI platform. He started it in 2021 as Shop Circle with Gian Maria Gramondi, whom he met on ESCP Business School’s Master in Management programme. Shop Circle began by buying apps for e-commerce merchants. As the group moved into enterprise infrastructure, developer tools and other vertical software, it adopted Circeus as its holding-company brand in June 2026. Shop Circle is now its retail and commerce division. The company reports 18 acquisitions in four years, more than 200,000 businesses served and more than $220 million in total capital. Its offices are in London, Milan and Sarajevo.

Career Highlights

• Co-founded Shop Circle in London in April 2021. He has been a director of the operating company since incorporation and has led it as CEO since then.
• Launched Circeus as the group’s holding-company brand in June 2026, together with new equity from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.
• Raised a $60 million Series B led by Nextalia Ventures in February 2025, which completed the acquisition of the AI guided-selling platform Aiden.
• Extended the portfolio beyond commerce with acquisitions including the API gateway KrakenD, Encodian and the WhatsApp commerce platform Dondy.
• Named to the Forbes 30 Under 30 Europe 2022 list with his co-founder, as reported by ESCP Business School.
• Earlier worked as an Equity Associate at Jefferies and in venture capital at Pretiosum Ventures.

Professional Journey

Cartechini is Italian. He met Gian Maria Gramondi on the first day of ESCP Business School’s Master in Management in 2015, and the two kept working together afterwards. According to the Founders Factory profile of the company, Cartechini worked as an Equity Associate at Jefferies and then in venture capital at Pretiosum Ventures, investing in B2B companies at seed and Series A. He also teaches entrepreneurship, digital transformation and finance at ESCP.

The idea for Shop Circle came in January 2021. It would acquire the small software tools that online merchants depend on and run them as one suite. Shop Circle Ltd was incorporated in London on 15 April 2021, and its first funding round followed in May. By July 2022, when ESCP reported the founders’ inclusion in the Forbes 30 Under 30 Europe list, the company had raised $65 million in equity and debt and served more than 40,000 merchants. In February 2025 it raised a $60 million Series B led by Nextalia Ventures, with Endeavor Catalyst joining existing investors NFX, QED Investors, 645 Ventures, 3VC and i80 Group. TechCrunch reported that revenue had grown 110% year on year and that the company had been profitable for two consecutive years. In December 2025 the group expanded its credit facility with i80 Group to $100 million.

Its acquisitions then moved beyond e-commerce, with KrakenD, an API management company whose users include Honda and American Express, joining in January 2026. On 29 June 2026 the group introduced Circeus as its holding-company brand to reflect that wider portfolio and announced new equity from the EBRD. Cartechini said: “As AI evolves software from passive tools into systems that act and execute, the addressable market for technology is expanding several-fold.” Shop Circle stays as the commerce division. In July 2026 Circeus acquired Dondy, a WhatsApp commerce platform, and folded it into that division. Cartechini has said that applying AI across the group expands EBITDA margins at acquired businesses by 15 to 20 percentage points on average.

Education

ESCP Business School

Master in Management