List of international Venture Capital Funds interested in Portuguese based startups

Pedro Almeida
6 min readJun 15, 2020

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Updated version at https://www.pedroalmeidavc.com

International Venture Capital funds represent a relevant source for Portuguese startups. In 2020, >40% of the rounds had the participation of an international investor. Those rounds represented 80% of the amount invested, as international investors are particularly relevant financing sources for post-seed investment. But even in seed and pre-seed rounds, international investors account for over 30% of the rounds.

For more statistics on Portuguese startups, check the Portugal Startup Activity report.

In total, there are >20 International Venture capital funds that have already investing in Portugal and more than 40 that are actively looking for Portugal.

Though I only have started collecting data for 2020, I have noticed a growing interest from international Venture Capital funds in Portugal over the last years — due to the recent success of Farfetch, Talkdesk, Outsystems, Feedzai, DefinedCrowd, among others.

Also, I have noticed that Spanish funds are increasingly deploying resources to find opportunities in Portugal — e.g., Samaipata dedicated a post explaining why they are interested in Portugal, Kibo announced that was opening an office in Lisbon, etc.

Due to my Business Angel activities and to support my portfolio companies, I interact frequently with several international venture capital funds that are interested in opportunities in Portugal.

Aiming to help all Portuguese startups in their fundraising process, I have put together a list of the Venture Capital funds interested in the region.

Check also the list of Top Venture capital funds based in Portugal. If you are in pre-seed and seed phase you might also be looking for Business Angels based in Portugal.

As the best way for entrepreneurs to connect with these funds is through the founders of the investors’ portfolio companies, I have highlighted previous investments in Portuguese companies.

I considered interesting funds that are dedicating time or money in recent years. It is a qualitative assessment, as there is limited information available, so it is pruned to error. If there is any information that is incorrect or any fund is missing you can leave a note in the comments section or interact with me via LinkedIn

Pre-seed/Accelerators

Techstars | https://www.techstars.com/

Seedcamp | https://seedcamp.com/

500startups | https://500.co/

YCombinator | https://www.ycombinator.com/

  • Offices: SF/USA
  • Prior investments in PT: 3 | Unbabel (https://unbabel.com/), Orankl (https://www.orankl.com/), Esla Speak (https://elsaspeak.com/)
  • Thesis: Agnostic
  • Tickets: 125k$

Seed to Series A venture capital firms (300k€-5M€)

Join Capital | https://www.join.capital/

All Iron Ventures | http://www.alliron.vc/

Kibo Ventures | http://kiboventures.com/

Vesalius Biocapital Partners | https://www.vesaliusbiocapital.com/

Cherry | http://www.cherry.vc/

  • Offices: Berlin/Germany
  • Prior investments in PT: 1 | Dashdash (https://dashdash.com/)
  • Thesis: Agnostic but strong experience with marketplaces
  • Tickets: 1M€-5M€
  • Person looking to Portugal: Marguerite de Tavernost

Firstminute Capital | https://www.firstminute.capital/

Frontline | https://www.frontline.vc/

  • Offices: London, UK
  • Prior investments in PT: 1 | James (https://james.finance/)
  • Thesis: B2B, SaaS, bringing Europe and US
  • Tickets: 500k€-3m€
  • Person looking to Portugal: Carolina Kung

LocalGlobe | https://localglobe.vc/

Mangrove | https://www.mangrove.vc

Octopus Ventures | https://octopusventures.com/

  • Offices: London/UK, New York/USA
  • Prior investments in PT: 1 | Uniplaces (https://www.uniplaces.com/)
  • Thesis: health, money and deep tech
  • Tickets: 1M€-10M€
  • Person looking to Portugal: Rebecca Hunt

Speedinvest | https://speedinvest.com/

  • Offices: London/UK, Vienna/Austria, Munchen/Germany, Berlin/Germany, SF/USA
  • Prior investments in PT: 1 | Secret City Trails (https://www.secretcitytrails.com/)
  • Thesis: Agnostic
  • Tickets: 500k-3M€
  • Person looking to Portugal: Markus Lang

Adara | https://www.adaravp.com/

  • Offices: Madrid/Spain, Luxembourg and SF/USA
  • Prior investments in PT: 0
  • Thesis: Deep tech, Europe
  • Tickets: 500k€ — 3M€
  • Person looking to Portugal: Ross Strachan

Angular Ventures | https://www.angularventures.com/

  • Offices: London/UK
  • Prior investments in PT: 0
  • Thesis: Seed, Deeptech, Enterprise
  • Tickets: 200k$-1M$
  • Person looking to Portugal: Gil Dibner

Basinghall Partners | https://www.basinghallpartners.com/

  • Offices: London/UK, Lisbon/Portugal, Munich/Germany, and Luxembourg
  • Prior investments in PT: 0
  • Fund: B2B
  • Tickets: 250k-1M€
  • Person looking to Portugal: Ilya Velder

BlueYard | https://blueyard.com/

  • Offices: Berlin/Germany
  • Prior investments in PT: 0
  • Fund: Deeptech, Blockchain
  • Tickets: 1–5M€
  • Person looking to Portugal: Juan Pinilla

Caixa Capital Risc | https://www.caixacapitalrisc.es/

  • Offices: Madrid/Spain
  • Prior investments in PT: 0
  • Thesis: SaaS, B2B, Health, Life Sciences
  • Tickets: 500k€-5M€
  • Person looking to Portugal: Roma Jelinskaite

KFund | https://kfund.co/

  • Offices: Madrid, Spain
  • Prior investments in PT: 0
  • Thesis: Digital companies
  • Tickets: 300k€-2M€
  • Person looking to Portugal: Pablo Ventura

Hoxton Ventures | http://www.hoxtonventures.com/

  • Offices: London/UK
  • Prior investments in PT: 0
  • Thesis: Agnostic
  • Tickets: 500k$-5M$
  • Person looking to Portugal: Hussein Kanji

Nauta Capital | https://nautacapital.com/

  • Offices: Barcelona/Spain, London/UK, Munchen/Germany
  • Prior investments in PT: 0
  • Thesis: B2B, capital-efficient
  • Tickets: 1–5M€
  • Person looking to Portugal: Borja Lajas

Point 9 | http://www.pointninecap.com/

  • Offices: Berlin/Germany
  • Prior investments in PT: 0
  • Thesis: SaaS, Marketplace
  • Tickets: 1–5M€
  • Person looking to Portugal: Ricardo Sequerra

Partech | https://partechpartners.com/

  • Offices: Paris/France
  • Prior investments in PT: 0
  • Fund: Agnostic
  • Tickets: €200K to €50M
  • Person looking to Portugal: Boris Golden

Profounders | https://www.profounderscapital.com/

  • Offices: London/UK
  • Prior investments in PT: 0
  • Fund: Agnostic
  • Tickets: €1–3M
  • Person looking to Portugal: Sean Seton-Rogers

Project-a | https://www.project-a.com/

  • Offices: Berlin/Germany
  • Prior investments in PT: 0
  • Fund: Agnostic
  • Tickets: €1–7M
  • Person looking to Portugal: Nina Jetter

Samaipata | https://samaipata.vc/

Series A and beyond venture capital firms (>3M€)

e.ventures | https://www.eventures.vc/

Index Ventures | http://indexventures.com/

Lakestar | https://www.lakestar.com/

Accel | https://www.accel.com/

Atomico | https://www.atomico.com/

Balderton | https://www.balderton.com/

Notion Capital | https://notion.vc/

USV | https://www.usv.com/

White Star Capital | http://whitestarvc.com/

  • Offices: London/UK, Paris/France, Montreal/Canada, New York/USA
  • Prior investments in PT: 1 | Hole19 (https://www.hole19golf.com/)
  • Thesis: B2C and B2B Marketplaces, e-commerce, SaaS
  • Tickets: 5M€-
  • Person looking to Portugal: Nicholas Stock

IdInvest | https://www.idinvest.com/en

  • Offices: Paris/France (HQ) and other 9 locations
  • Prior investments in PT: 0
  • Fund: Agnostic
  • Tickets: 5M€-
  • Person looking to Portugal: Nicolas Debock

Seaya | https://seayaventures.com/

  • Offices: Madrid/Spain, São Paulo/Brazil, Mexico DC/Mexico
  • Prior investments in PT: 0
  • Fund: B2C
  • Tickets: 3M€-
  • Person looking to Portugal: Aristotelis Xenofontos

Originally published at https://www.pedroalmeidabusinessangel.com on June 15, 2020.

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Pedro Almeida

Investor and advisor in early stage tech startups based Portugal and with Global ambition. Know more at www.pedroalmeidabusinessangel.com