Venture Capital funds and Business Angels in Portugal

Updated version here

3 min readMay 14, 2019

Venture Capital in Portugal landscape and Portuguese ecosystem in general have been evolving quite fast and growing 2x faster than European ecosystem. In the first half of 2019 more money has been invested in startups than 2018 full year.

Portugal startup, Venture Capital and Business Angel activity report

To accelerate (and take advantage) of this momentum, a new generation of independent investors and venture capital funds — Indico and Armilar Venture Partners — and business angels — Cristina Fonseca (Talkesk), Carlos Silva (Seedrs) —seems to be emerging in Portugal.

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Highlight of Venture Capital and Business Angels investors in Portugal

Armilar Venture Partners | http://www.armilar.com/

Management buyout of Espírito Santo Ventures. Early investors of Outsystems, Feedzai and Codacy. Focused on deep tech on Information Technology, HealthTech and CleanTech space. +€250M assets under management. Its €60M new multi-stage fund is focused on technology transfer from universities.

Bright Pixel | https://brpx.com/investment/

Founded by former Sapo Co-Founder — Celso Martinho — and part of Sonae group. Seed investor in Retail, Telecom, Cybersecurity and IoT with a particular interest in B2B. Investor of Probe.ly and Eat Tasty.

Bynd (former Busy Angels) | http://bynd.vc/

Business Angel group now turned VC from Luís Mira Amaral, Santiago Salazar, Lurdes Gramaxo, Ana Paula Reis and Francisco Ferreira Pinto. Invests in Life Science and Technology Information space. Investor of Defined Crowd and Probe.ly.

EDP Ventures | https://www.edpventures.vc/

Corporate VC from EDP, Portuguese based utility.Current investment priorities on Clean Energy, Smart Grids, Client-Focused solutions, Energy Storage and Digital Innovation. More about EDP Ventures’ portfolio here.

Faber Ventures |https://www.faber-ventures.com/

Carlos Silva (Seedrs) have joined Alexandre Barbosa and raised €30M fund focused on data centric teams. Prior investments in Unbabel and Seedrs.

Indico| http://www.indicocapital.com/

Founded by 2 former Caixa Capital members — Stephan Morais and Ricardo Torgal — and Talkdesk co-founder — Cristina Fonseca. >€40M first fund. Focused on Seed and post Seed startups and in areas like blockchain, artificial intelligence, big data, enterprise SaaS, fintech, marketplaces, among others. Led Attentive.us most recent round.

Kibo Ventures | http://kiboventures.com/

Pre-series A and Series A Spanish Venture Capital fund. Investor on Hole19 and Defined Crowd. Pedro Trinité, based out of Lisbon, supports Kibo on investment opportunities in Portugal.

LC Ventures | http://www.lcventures.pt/

Investment fund behind Beta-i team. Besides investing in the startups of the Lisbon Challenge Accelerator program, LC Ventures invests in pre-Seed and Seed investment opportunities. Investors of Landing.jobs and Sparkl.

Pathena | http://www.pathena.com/

Founded by the former entrepreneur António Murta. Focused on life sciences and information technology companies. €70M assets under management. Investor of 360imprimir.

Portugal Ventures | https://www.portugalventures.pt/

State own fund investing in Digital, Engineering & Manufacturing, Life Sciences and Tourism sectors. . One of the first early stage investors in Portugal with over 75 portfolio companies, including Aptoide — my employeer ;) — and Outsystems.

Red Angels | https://www.redangels.pt/en/

Jointly with Busy Angels and Shilling, one of the most active Business Angel group in Portugal. Launched a new brand and initiative named Core Angels. More details about Red Angel’s portfolio companies here.

Semapa Next | http://www.semapanext.com/

Venture Capital and Fund of Funds arm of Semapa, one of the largest Portuguese Industrial Groups. The team and family behind Semapa have been investing in early stage startups since the beginning of the century (e.g., early investors of Ydreams) and more recently have decided to give a step forward and created an early stage fund. Local partner of Techstars Lisbon. Its venture investments are mostly on Series A and beyond stages.

Shilling | http://www.shillingcapital.com/

Business Angel group from 6 partners, including Hugo Gonçalves Pereira and João Coelho Borges. Early investors of Uniplaces and Best Tables (sold to The Fork from TripAdvisor)

Sonae IM | https://sonaeim.com/

Technology investment arm of Sonae, one of the largest Portuguese conglomerate. Similar industry focus as Bright Pixel — Telco Technologies, Retail and Cybersecurity. Commitment to invest €200M over the period off 5 years. Over 35 portfolio companies.

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