When Jason Calacanis, “arguably the world’s greatest angel investor”, is asked whether you must be located in Silicon Valley to be a successful angel investor, his answer is an emphatic “yes!” According to him, if you’re not it’s ridiculously hard to get any meaningful investments under your belt.
Now, Jason is a straight-maths kind of guy (he’s known for figuring out how much money startups have left in the bank by asking a few simple questions). He knows what he’s talking about. For now, more than half of the world’s unicorns are in the United States (54%), so it stands to reason that if you want to have a go at angel investing, that’s where you should take your shot.
But we also know that this is not contextually true (e.g. two of the three most valuable startups in the world are Chinese) as the time for maturing incumbent markets is upon us. And Lisbon is clearly on that list.
If you think you’ve seen Lisbon at its best, we’re here to assure you that we’re just getting started. That’s why, in 2018, we’re going all in with our newest edition of the Lisbon Investment Summit. You may ask, why you should join us on June 6 and 7? I can think of at least 3 reasons:
Reason One – Emerging Startup Power
Just this year we’ve witnessed new strong investments in the ecosystem, with Farfetch getting a €397 million investment, Feedzai raising a €50 million Series C and Veniam raising a 22€ Million Series B. And there are many more startups coming out blazing that you should keep an eye on. If you want to meet them, #LIS is the place to be.
Reason Two – A Crazy Talent Magnet
When companies like Mercedes Daimler, Zalando, Pipedrive, Amazon and Uber are betting heavily on new offices, digital innovation hubs and operation centers in Lisbon, that’s what we call “validation”. These moves signal a straightforward proof that our sunny city is joining the big dogs. If you’re curious about understanding why it’s a sound bet and how it can be done, guess where you should be during those two fateful days?
Reason Three – Early Stage Startup Gold
In our 2017 edition we brought over 700 startups to Lisbon, with 50% of them looking for early stage seed investments. And 150 investors answered the call. It helps that according to Allianz Kulturstiftung, Lisbon ranks as the fifth-best-performing startup community in Europe, ahead of other powerhouses like Stockholm and Dublin. So if you’re looking for your next investment or if you’re looking to raise money for your startup, you should definitely check us out. We’ll even help you out with the matchmaking.
If this gets your blood pumping, you should know Early Bird Tickets are out.
See you in June?