This year’s edition of the Lisbon Challenge, an ambitious 3 month international acceleration program for tech based startups, is launched today, with 8 startups stepping into the final stage of the program, that already includes investment.
In the applications stage, the program attracted 209 startups, from 45 different countries. In fact, 82% were from out of Portugal, a fact that goes to show you how international Lisbon Challenge is.
The selected startups , for this final stage, are Honest Make (SaaS platform that allows retailers to show and sell their products via conversations with their customers), Predict Churn (Analytics platform to anticipate the possibility of cancellation of a subscription service), SCUBIC (Energy management decision support platform for water utilities), Shareacar (a peer to peer car rental community, kind of the Airbnb for cars), Social Grid (a marketplace that helps brands and agencies finding and managing the right digital influencers, at scale), Triad Health AI (a platform for exercise, health monitoring and daily life activities for Parkinson patients), Wall-i (a web solution to help marketing managers launch digital out-of-home advertising campaigns with real audience and context metrics) and Gofact (Invoicing, Expenses and Bank Accounts, on a single platform).
The program will take place in the next 10 weeks, and is divided in 4 stages: Validation, Product, Growth and Investment. After today’s launch, these are the next milestones:
27 April – Tech Day, powered by Bright Pixel
30 April – Ai Sessions powered by Google
4 May – Product Demo Day powered by CML
6 June – Investors Pitch, at the Lisbon Investment Summit
15 June – Program Finale, powered by Microsoft
“This year, the focus is much more deep tech, since we have a more mature batch of candidates, that allows us to look at more complex and relevant questions, like artificial intelligence. The program migrated from a non-equity format, without any participation or investment, to a fund-driven accelerator, and that also informs our selection strategy”, says Pedro Rocha Vieira, CEO at Beta-i.
The selected startups get 10.000 euros from the start, in exchange for 1,5% of their capital. This money is guaranteed by LC Ventures, that manages over 11 million euros (spread in 2 separate investment vehicles and a risk capital fund), that is co-financed in 3 million euros by Fundo de Capital and Quase Capital, from the COMPETE 2020 e POR Lisboa programs, both linked to the Portugal 2020 initiative, and the European Union, via FEDER.
The other Investment Partners are Red Angels and SONAE/Bright Pixel, but the program also relies heavily on the support of the Lisbon City Hall, Turismo de Portugal, Microsoft and Google, who act as Acceleration Partners.
Lisbon Challenge was first launched in 2013, and in total, more than 200 startups, from 28 countries, have been involved with the program. Our alumni have raised over 65 million euros, and 40% of them got invested.