Despite its small size and population Portugual is capable of big projects. You know how they say, big things start with small steps. The odds are in favor of Portugual as the country. Indeed, the country is doing a lot effort to overcome the pandemic in a good state. In fact, other than being the first country in Europe for vaccination status (above 90%), the government made available almost 280 million euros to boost the economy. So, together with booster shots for the virus Portugual is definitely trying to boost their economy as well. In fact, with just their top 20 startups gathering about 120 million euros as investment Portugual is really rolling up its sleeves. Let’s take a look at the top 5 startups in Portugual.
Topic App
Founded in 2016 and currently based in Porto, Tonic is a healthcare startup. The company provides an app that is like a summary on medicine for health professionals. Its advantages are many. For example, allowing for improved diagnosis and treatment, since doctors are given access to academic research at any moment. Apps like this have gained massive notoriety after the pandemic, given the necessity to make healthcare faster and more flexible.
Tonic and its app managed to attract a total of four investors to further fund their idea and business model. From these four investors, the company managed to raise more than 3 million euros. Among these investors figures Portugual Ventures, the venture capital firm.
Infraspeak
As the name itself suggests it is a tool for companies to always having updated info. In fact, Infraspeak is a communication technology startup. Founded in 2015 and located in Porto, the company has developed a platform to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of facilities management for businesses. This is possible thanks to the rapid sharing of information achieved by the platform, all with a centralized process.
Infraspeak counts over 40,000 teams performing maintenance everyday, and it also offers different solutions depending on someone’s role (manager, technician, or clients. Infraspeak caught the eye of good investors. Indeed, the company managed to raise 5.4 million dollars in startup funding from investors, despite only having traded for six years so far. One of these investors includes 500 Startups, even if it didn’t have a major role.
ComparaJa
Founded in 2015, ComparaJa is a fintech company headquartered in Lisbon. ComparaJa could be seen some sort of TripAdvisor for financial services and utilities for internet and comunication. The company provides a free platform which users can use to compare a range of different telecoms and credit products. This helps customers to find the option that is best suited to their financial and practical needs. It achieves this goal through a very user-friendly approach. It allows users to perform free simulations to show them how what they can save in terms of money and time first-hand. Surprisingly, ComparaJa hasn’t received foreign attention yet, but it definitely ranks as one of the most interesting startups in the country.
Casafari
As the name itself suggests, this startup represents the uncharted territory for real estate investments. Casafari is a Lisbon-based real estate tech startup which came to light in 2017. The company’s keystone is a property database which helps to create a huge list of potential investment opportunities for those who look at real estate with interest. The platform opetrates and updates itself in rieal time, guaranteeing investors reliable information at all moments. The amount of investments received by the company peaked in 2017 when it received about 5 million euros from both angel investors and venture firms. As for now, the company has translated its website in 5 different languages, signal that it is fastly expanding to an international market as we speak.
Fibersail
Startups like Fibersail represent what will need for a better green energy industry. Fibersail is an energy technology startup which came to life in 2015 and currently headquartered in Maia, Portugual. The company provides support to those who chose to try to go “green”. Through an analytics and oversight report it helps companies operating wind turbines improve their processes. “If you cannot measure it, you cannot improve it” is the motto of the company, which clearly aims at speeding up the green transition of energy. The satisfy the need to monitor the performance of longer and more flexible new-generation wind turbine blades by thinking to a specific sensor for them. The real-time data from their reports helps to organize maintenance and assess the safety of the facility making renewable energy more realistic.
Fibersail attracted an initial investment of about 800,000 thousand euros from grants and venture capital funding. Nowadays it operetaes in 5 countries in Europe including Germany, Italy and Denmark. It ranks itself as one of the most promising companies of Portugual with great potential.
I hope you enjoyed our top 5 list, stay tuned for the next one.