I just wanted to wish you a happy 2024!
I know 2023 was a great year, one of those to be remembered in history. I mean, tele-transportation, first settlers in Mars, and the world’s first 3D printed chocolate cake… What’s not to love?
Well, , let’s step out of my crystal ball for a second. Before you start wondering if 2016 was a good year or not, pretty much like everybody else, and whether if 2017 will be better, I just wanted to tell you that we’ve been to the future, and it works.
At Beta-i, we look at the future like a kid looks at a swimming pool in a hot summer afternoon. We want to jump in with both feet. And that’s exactly what we’re doing for 2017.
But, before that happens we just want look back at 2016, which was a hell of year for the Portuguese startup scene. And here’s our list of the top highlights of the year to prove it:
1. Web Summit and its 50.000 attendees in Lisbon
2. First book on Lisbon’s startup scene: Startup Guide Lisbon and the first Lisbon Startup Tour
3. World known experts from Stanford University and Apple giving Masterclasses to entrepreneurs
4. First edition of Pixels Camp, Europe’s largest hackathon
5. First Smart Cities and Open Data program in Lisbon, Smart Open Lisboa
6. Portuguese startup Infraspeak joining 500 Startups in San Francisco
7. Moneytis, a startup from Lisbon Challenge, joining Y Combinator
8. Lisbon’s startup scene featured on Wired as a top startup hub
9. Beta-i considered the top incubator in Lisbon by Wired
10. Unbabel closing its Series A of 4.5 million
11. The Lisbon Investment Summit and the sunset cocktail on the yacht
12. Tradiio closing the largest Portuguese crowdfunding campaign on Seedrs
13. Caixa Capital investing on our alumni Probe.ly and EatTasty
14. Launching the first fintech accelerator in Portugal, SIBSPayForward
15. Line Health moving to Boston and raising 1 million euros in the US
16. First edition of Protechting by Fidelidade, an accelerator on insurance, and the launch of the second edition
17. Publishing the first Portuguese Startup Manifesto and presenting it to European Commission
Thank you, from the bottom of our hearts, for being part of it, .
Now, it’s time to jump into 2017 and look to the future. We wish you all the best for this upcoming year, including that 3D printed chocolate cake (yes, it already exists). Happy new year!