Portugal startup ecosystem
Portugal — especially Lisbon — has quickly become one of Europe's most popular startup destinations. Affordable living, a welcoming visa regime for tech workers, and marquee events like Web Summit have attracted international founders. Strengths include SaaS, travel tech, and sustainability, with growing VC activity and government-backed startup incentives. The directory currently lists 91 organisations across 9 cities.
Showing 1–20 of 91 Portugal
Cities in Portugal
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Portugal results
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Alentejo Accelerator
The Alentejo Accelerator is a regional startup acceleration programme run by ANJE, the Portuguese National Association of Young Entrepreneurs, supporting early-stage founders in the Alentejo region around Evora. It provides training, mentoring and networking to help new businesses develop and grow.
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Aptoide
Independent alternative Android app store and distribution platform with 430M+ users and 1M+ apps, one of the largest Android stores globally, with an AppCoins crypto rewards layer. Founded 2009.
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Armilar Venture Partners
Armilar Venture Partners is a Lisbon-based venture capital firm that spun out from Portugal's Novabase group in 2016, building on a venture investment track record dating back to 2001. The firm invests from seed through growth stage in deep tech, enterprise IT, and healthcare, with a focus on Portuguese and Iberian founders with global ambitions. Armilar manages over EUR 200M and has backed companies including Feedzai (AI fraud detection unicorn), Outsystems, Sword Health, and Codacy. The team provides strategic support in US market entry and international scaling.
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Bandora
Bandora is an AI-powered virtual facility manager that integrates with existing building management systems to optimize energy efficiency, reduce costs, and maintain comfort in commercial buildings. The startup has reported about USD 1M-1.5M in pre-seed/seed backing and won the CTA CEO Summit startup pitch in Lisbon, earning a complimentary exhibit space at CES 2026 in Las Vegas.
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Beta-i / Lisbon Challenge
Beta-i is a Lisbon-based innovation and acceleration organisation founded in 2009 that runs startup programmes, including its well-known Lisbon Challenge accelerator, and helps corporates innovate through open-innovation initiatives. With a presence spanning Lisbon, Brussels, Boston and Sao Paulo, it has supported thousands of startups across Europe and beyond.
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BIO-Europe Spring 2026
Life sciences partnering conference in Lisbon built around structured 1:1 meetings between biotech startups, pharma companies, and investors. Registration costs about EUR 2800+. Covers drug discovery, clinical development, and licensing. Essential for biotech startups seeking licensing deals, co-development partnerships, and Series A+ funding from specialized life-science investors.
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Bling Energy
Residential solar company offering panels, batteries, EV chargers and backup systems via a no-upfront-cost subscription model, aiming to cut household electricity bills by up to 50%.
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Bloop
Bloop is a Lisbon-based social-commerce startup founded by Francisco Rodrigues (CEO) and João Neves (CTO), both alumni of companies including Amazon, Farfetch, Microsoft and Uber. Conceived in 2022 and formalised in 2024, it operates what it calls the world's first social shopping network — a platform that fuses a product marketplace with the mechanics of a social feed, turning ordinary consumers into paid recommenders. Users earn wallet credits of up to 10% of a purchase's value for publishing authentic recommendations, and up to 5% commission on referral sales, while sellers gain community-generated exposure instead of paid ads. At its July 2025 public beta the platform carried 200,000+ products from 150+ brands and reported a ~4.5% conversion rate. Bloop has raised about €1.5M in pre-seed capital co-led by Monarque Funds and Insure Broker, including one of Portugal's largest retail crowdfunding rounds, and targeted a €5M seed to expand into Spain and France.
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Bright Pixel (Sonae IM)
Bright Pixel (formerly Sonae IM) is the technology investment arm of Portugal's Sonae Group, operating as a corporate venture studio from Porto and Lisbon. Founded as Sonae IM and rebranded in 2020, Bright Pixel invests EUR 1-5M at Series A and B in cybersecurity, retail tech, telecom, and fintech companies across Europe and Israel. The firm manages over EUR 200M and has backed companies including Outsystems, Feedzai, and S21sec. Bright Pixel provides portfolio companies with strategic access to Sonae's retail and telecom operations for piloting and commercial partnerships.
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Brisa Boost
Brisa Boost is the corporate startup accelerator and open-innovation programme of Brisa, Portugal's largest motorway operator. It works with early-stage startups in mobility, smart infrastructure and sustainability, offering pilots on Brisa's road network, mentoring and access to its business units.
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BSides Porto 2026
A community-run technical infosec conference at ISEP Porto — workshops on Friday, then main tracks, villages, an electronic badge, and a Capture-The-Flag on Saturday, with roughly 800 attendees. Valuable for security-minded founders and engineers, and for any startup wanting to plug into Portugal's cybersecurity talent pool.
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Builders Circle Porto 2026
Builders Circle Porto is a small, application-only, operator-led one-day session organised by Product Circle for product managers and product leaders. Held at MC Digital in Porto, it covers product strategy, AI-era decision-making, discovery and growth for startup and scaleup operators in an intimate format.
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Bynd Venture Capital
Founded in 2016, Bynd Venture Capital is a Lisbon-based early-stage VC managing over EUR 60M, investing EUR 0.5-2M at seed and Series A in digital transformation, consumer internet, and e-commerce startups across the Iberian Peninsula. Portfolio companies include Kitch (ghost kitchens), Sensei (autonomous retail), and Nutrium (nutrition SaaS). Bynd focuses on product-driven founders and leverages Lisbon's growing tech ecosystem to connect Portuguese startups with European and US investors.
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Casa do Impacto (MAZE)
Casa do Impacto was founded in October 2018 in Lisbon's Convento de São Pedro de Alcântara under the umbrella of Santa Casa da Misericórdia de Lisboa, in partnership with Lisbon City Council, the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, and other institutions. It serves as Lisbon's main hub for social entrepreneurship, offering incubation, acceleration (including the Maze Impact program), coworking, and investment readiness support to startups working on social and environmental challenges. Within its first three years it had incubated 48 startups, supported over 190 projects, and established 30 national and international partnerships.
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Class of Wonders
Class of Wonders is an impact-focused edtech startup building gamified classroom tools and inclusive learning experiences, including language-learning adaptations for migrant children. Through Lisboa Innovation for All, the team presented MAGOS for All, and it has also participated in ecosystem initiatives such as Techstars Startup Weekend in Viseu.
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Codacy
Automated code-quality and security platform (static analysis, SAST, secret and dependency scanning, AI guardrails) supporting 40+ languages; used by 15,000+ organizations. Founded 2012.
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Comudel
Comudel develops a business operating system that automates workflows, legal contract handling, and AI-assisted financial operations for companies. Founded in 2022, it is associated with Unicorn Factory Lisboa and Instituto Pedro Nunes, operates from The Fintech House in Lisbon, and participated in the SPRINT accelerator focused on compliance and enterprise operations.
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Coreflux
IoT data-pipeline platform built on MQTT, offering a managed broker, browser-based control hub, multi-protocol routing and the Language of Things scripting layer for real-time device integration.
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Coverflex
Coverflex is a Portuguese startup that builds a compensation management platform bringing together every part of employee compensation beyond salary, including flexible benefits, insurance, meal allowance and exclusive discounts in a single product. Employees manage their benefits, meal allowance, insurance and discounts through the Coverflex app and card, and can direct part of their balance toward savings products. Founded in 2019, it operates across European markets including Portugal, Italy and Spain. In February 2023 it raised a €15 million Series A round to support its European expansion.
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Cristina Fonseca
General Partner at Indico Capital Partners and co-founder of Talkdesk, the contact-centre software unicorn. A Forbes 30 Under 30 alumna and one of Portugal's best-known tech entrepreneurs, she invests in early-stage software and AI companies across Southern Europe.
