Portugal Startup Scene | May 2020 — Pedro Almeida
Originally published at https://www.pedroalmeidavc.com on May 11, 2020.
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Highlights
- 4 years ago a good friend referred me to DefinedCrowd and I was immediately impressed with the founders. I have been following them ever since and their execution has been impressive! Last month they raised $50.5M in a Series B round. Congrats João and Daniela, you rock! DefinedCrowd is backed by multiple Southern European VCs — which is great for the ecosystem — including Semapa Next which invested in the last round.
- ThousandEyes, founded by Ricardo Oliveira, was acquired by $1Bn by Cisco
- Marta Palmeiro won Católica woman entrepreneurship award. Congrats Marta! Marta, but also Cristina Fonseca and other leading Women in Portugal, have been having a critical role in inspiring other women in the Portuguese Startup Scene. YTD 20% of the rounds raised are from startups founded by at least 1 woman
- Maze X announce their 2020 cohort, which also counts this year with Microsoft support
- For those that missed Techstars by Semapa Next demo day, over the next weeks you can watch it online here
- Portuguese Business Angels invested €13M last year, doubling their contribution vs. 2018.
- During this pandemic, Portuguese entrepreneurs fighting COVID continue to surprise the world. Forbes highlighted Tech4Covid technology solutions. Telegraph shared the story of why Portugal COVID’s testing rate is almost 2x higher than other nations. Still in COVID topic, a new report on COVID’s impact on startups in Portugal shows that Portuguese entrepreneurs are now more positive vs 2 months ago
- Not a highlight, but given that multiple readers of this newsletter shared with me (thank you for the suggestion), I thought you might be interested as well. Jaime, from KFund, has a similar newsletter about Spain. You can find it in here
Accelerator, pitch competition and events
- June 2 Webinar EEA Grants — Programa Crescimento Azul
- June 5 Portugal Ventures CALL INNOV-ID
- June 16 Startup Lisboa Launch in Lisbon
- June 21 Everis award
- June 23 Demium Lisbon
- June 30 Disrupt Retail — Call for Technology by Sonae MC
- July 15 Blue Bio Value business accelerator
- July 15 Award IN3+ Casa da Moeda
- July 20 Ageas Insure
Pedro Almeida’s stuff
- As always, I am open for business. Made 1 investment last month, not yet public (though having difficulties in keeping it to myself, as I am very excited about it)
- Thanks for your great enthusiasm and feedback on this newsletter. I have made a few improvements, particularly on the KPIs section, hope it looks nicer. (apologies for any typo — I am really good at it!)
- João Leite, my good friend and Innovation Director at Pestana, joined me curating this newsletter. Welcome aboard!
- I am also running a survey aiming to understand more about the investors’ landscape. If you are an entrepreneur, please fill in this survey
Funding rounds
Startup: DefinedCrowd (https://www.definedcrowd.com/)
Amount: 50.5M$
TAGs: B2B, Artificial Intelligence, Data Center, Machine Learning, Natural Language Processing, Software
Investors: SemapaNext, Hermes GPE Evolution, Equity Partners, edp ventures, Kibo Ventures, Portugal Ventures, Bynd, EDP Ventures, IronFire Ventures, Amazon Alexa Fund, Sony Innovation Fund and Mastercard
Startup: Zenklub (https://zenklub.com.br/)
Amount:2.6M€
TAGs: Health Care, Internet, Psychology, MarketplaceB2B, Food Delivery, Software, Food
Investors: Indico Capital, All Iron, 200M and Brazilian Business Angels
Startup: 20tree.ai (https://www.20tree.ai/)
Amount: 1.5M$
TAGs: Artificial Intelligence, Big Data, Machine Learning, Software, Forest
Investors: Unknown
Startup: Eucalipsus Um, Lda.
Amount: 1.3M€
Investors: Growth Partners Capital
Startup: Sensefinity (https://www.sensefinity.com)
Amount: 1.2M€
TAGs: B2B, Internet of Things, Logistics, Supply chain, Blockchain
Investors: LC Ventures
Startup: Kitch (https://eatkitch.com/)
Amount: 1M€
TAGs: B2B, Food Delivery, Software, Food
Investors: Seedcamp, Mustard Seed Maze, Keys Asset Management, João Cepeda (Time Out Market), Cleo Sham (Spotahome) and Antonio Costanzo (EMMAC Life Sciences)
Startup: WeChangers (https://www.wechangers.org/en)
Amount: 1M€
TAGs: B2B, Social, Impact
Investors: Fundo para a Inovação Social, Regenerative Investment, BOMA Investments and Fundo Bem Comum FCR
Startup: Virtual Power Solutions (https://www.vps.energy/)
Amount: 1M€
TAGs: B2B, Energy efficiency
Investors: LC Ventures
Startup: Agroop (https://www.agroop.net)
Amount: 682k€
TAGs: B2B, AgTech, Big Data, Farming, Internet of Things, Software
Investors: Fundo para a Inovação Social and Unknown International
Startup: TotalCross Global Mobile Platform (https://totalcross.com/)
Amount: 200k€
TAGs: Developer Tools, Information Services, Mobile, Software
Investors: LC Ventures
Startup: Jesbee (http://www.jesbee.com/)
Amount: 158k€
TAGs: B2C, Coupons, Messaging, Mobile, Mobile Advertising
Investors: LC Ventures
Startup: Dashdash (https://dashdash.com/)
Amount: Unknown
TAGs: B2B, Internet, Productivity Tools, Software, Web Apps, Web Design, Web Development, Low code
Investors: Armilar Venture Partners
Startup: Replay (https://www.replai.io/)
Amount: Unknown
TAGs: B2B, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Video
Investors: Ideias Glaciares
International funding rounds participated by Portuguese investors
See also
Originally published at https://www.pedroalmeidabusinessangel.com on May 11, 2020.
