After pursuing her education in both Portugal and the U.S., Catarina became a legal advisor for social causes. She recently joined the startup world by becoming General Counsel at SWORD Health – a startup shaping the future of physical therapy, that recently raised a $9 Million round led by Koshla Ventures.
She’ll be joining Lisbon Investment Summit this week for a panel on Cross-border Investments – but she took the time to share with us her experience.
When raising investment, what are the more common mistakes founders make in the legal department?
Not properly listening to the General Counsel! (laughs) I’m kidding. I’m new in the business, but it appears to me that start-ups do not have an in-house legal team when this type of investment comes along. I might sound biased, but I’d advise all founders out there to have one or to have a good and close relationship with someone from the legal universe.
When we’re dealing with cross-border investments, the differences between legal orders might get easily overlooked. We’re dealing not only with different branches of law that must work harmoniously, but also with different national laws, and even with different legal systems. Take Sword, where we dealt with civil law v. common law. Another rookie mistake founders tend to make is to be lenient when it comes to choosing the law firm to work with them. In our case, we lost an entire month until we brought ML on board to help us make things go forward. Timing is very important when you deal with US investors: their pace is way faster than Europeans’, and we risked losing their interest because of how long things were taking.
What should founders take into consideration when building the legal structure of their business?
They should have a clear idea of what type of company they want to have, and to where they want to lead the project. It is very easy, and sometimes necessary, to make concessions that might work in the short-term, but bring problems for the long-haul. Investors and founders would be, ideally, aligned, but that isn’t often the case. It is important for founders not to lose track of what drove them to start the business. To keep that belief in your project is fundamental, from what I’ve learnt so far. I know I digressed from the legal point, but that has a reason. The legal structure and dynamic that ultimately rise are intimately related with the commitment that founders have with their original idea. Law is a tool, not a work-product.
What is, in your opinion, the steps founders must take in order to protect themselves and the company, when taking foreign investment?
I would point the following: 1) to know whether your company is ready to face an investment round; 2) to have a clear idea of what kind of investor you want to attract; 3) to discuss in depth with your GC the tax implications of taking foreign investment, both from an individual and from a company’s perspective; 4) to have the emotional stamina to face the process; 5) to keep your GC in the loop of all the steps you take in order to avoid unpleasant surprises that might sound great from the business perspective, but can be a thing from the legal perspective. I’m aware of the fame the legal teams have…we are the fun spoilers! (laughs)
Lisbon Investment Summit is knocking on our doorstep – in just a couple of days, we’ll gather the best innovators in the world for 2 days of knowledge sharing and discussion in an action-packed agenda. Here is all you can expect from our slightly unexpected event!
Thought-Provoking Conversations
What happens when you get some of the most daring entrepreneurs, corporate innovators, seasoned investors and forward thinking leaders in one place? A lot of interesting conversations! They will be sparked by our amazing speakers – like Andrew Keen, best-selling author of “How To Fix the Future”, that will share his thoughts on the challenges of digitalization and how society can overcome them. Not to mention talks on how to build a strong startup community, collaboration in innovation and how investment is changing across borders.
Perfect Matches
In the event like Lisbon Investment Summit – with some of the best startups around and top-tier investors we expect to see a lot of partnerships starting. The guests will be able to take advantage of our matchmaking app to find potential clients, but in a relaxed environment like #LIS it’s easy to just strike up a conversation with the person drinking coffee next to you, and who knows? It might be your next business partner.
Girl Power
Gender equality is not just a hot theme, it is something that runs in Beta-i’s DNA. Besides our female speakers – that range from entrepreneurs to venture capitalists – don’t miss #iamremarkable workshop by Google, to empower women to own their achievements, and the book launch of “Ara the Star Engineer”, a book to encourage girls to pursue STEM careers.
Fierce Pitch Competition
Lisbon Investment Summit gives the opportunity for startups to pitch in front of a crowd of top-tier investors and corporate innovators – and these startups are ready to shine. Like Daniela Seixas, founder and CEO of TonicApp told us, winning the pitch competition gave TonicApp the exposure and access it needed to start their investment round. So we can promise they will be ready to rock that stage.
Surprises
Besides our incredible panels on innovation, business and investment, #LIS is full of moments created to surprise you. Have dinner with a stranger and meet some interesting people, enjoy building your network while resting your eyes on the amazing views of the Tagus River, and ride a real-life bullicorn. Anything can happen at #LIS!
Bluetech Accelerator had its Pitch Day selection during European Maritime Day, on the 16th and 17th of May.
This is the phase where partners get together to evaluate and choose the startups moving to the bootcamp phase. To help them selected they watch a 3 minute pitch from the startup (remote call or in presence), followed by a short Q&A. Thirty-seven startups were invited to pitch on this day.
This event was part of European Maritime Day, one of the biggest industry events for Europe, and was opened by Ana Paula Vitorino, Minister of the Sea of the Republic of Portugal, one of the entities behind Bluetech Accelerator.
A glimpse on what happened at #bluetechaccelerator during the Europe Maritime Day. The objective for the Online Pitch is to choose the startups joining the bootcamp. 🌊Get to know more about Bluetech Accelerator at http://bluetechaccelerator.com/
Publicado por Beta-i em Segunda-feira, 3 de junho de 2019
We are one week away from Lisbon Investment Summit, the slightly unexpected startup conference that gathers the most daring innovators, corporate visionaries, and top-tier investors. We spoke with Daniela Seixas, CEO of TonicApp, and winner of last year’s competition, who will be joining Beta-i at #LIS again.
TonicApp, dedicated to the medical community, is an app that aggregates the most useful medical tools for doctors. It lets medical practitioners discuss clinical cases, check drug conversion tables and get informed on healthcare news – it even has a secure case discussion platform that connects doctors that can help each other in providing better care for patients.
Daniela, a medical doctor herself (neuroradiologist), felt the need to create a place for the community to convey and share. “It was a necessity I felt myself and all doctors as we see it. Today, doctors are overwhelmed with pressure from all sides – about costs, about time, and even legal situations in some markets like the United States. Besides that, the scientific knowledge is ever expanding and, nowadays, fragmented across the internet. So the idea was to create a go-to platform for all doctors that solves most of the problems they face daily.”
The startup has a connection with Beta-i from its early days – having participated in open-innovation programs like Techcare, backed by Novartis with whom TonicApp has partnered up -, so Lisbon Investment Summit made sense to them.
“We consider Lisbon Investment Summit to be one of the best events in entrepreneurship and investment in Portugal and Europe. At this time last year, we were starting our fundraising, and we specifically decided to start it at LIS, and we applied to pitch to have the exposure we needed. We’re closing the round now and even though we didn’t meet our investors at LIS, we definitely started the process there and communicated differently with each one, and it worked – we got the visibility we needed.”
The startup is not stopping anytime soon – they aim to be the ecosystem doctors need to thrive in all aspects of their profession, giving them the tools and information they need to keep thriving and providing the best care they can give to their patients.
“Tonic App has a lot of resources for doctors – some of them are clinical and some are not. This is our bet, we want to help doctors in their professional life, be it helping them diagnose and treat their patients or other areas.”
To create this, TonicApp is partnering up with other players and entities in a collaborative environment, to progress faster in a fast-paced innovative space.
“Building on an ecosystem idea, we want to work with all players in the ecosystem that have valuable resources for doctors, so we create partnerships with multinationals, like Randstad, or Medtronic or Novartis, but also with public entities, scientific organizations, and other startups like us, like Eventtia and SerFarma. Sometimes it doesn’t make sense to develop software ourselves when it already exists – we work as a channel for doctors.”
TonicApp will be at this year’s edition of Lisbon Investment Summit, and Daniela will be speaking at one of the panels at Google Stage – at the Book Launch: “Ara the Star Engineer”. The book tells the story of a young girl who loves numbers and uses her smarts to solve a big problem, by creating an algorithm and encountering real-life women tech trailblazers of diverse backgrounds. It aims to inspire young girls to pursue STEM careers and bring gender equality to the table in the sector.
As a doctor and female founder, Daniela is no stranger to the quest, bringing their unique perspective as a woman, doctor and entrepreneur: “I didn’t feel discrimination much as a female founder. Actually, even though entrepreneurship is a male-dominated field, much more than medicine – which nowadays has a lot more women than men – it’s a much more equitable environment for gender. Founding my own company and becoming its CEO, depended solely on me and my work during this time. In medicine, reaching a leadership position would not depend on me or my accomplishments, but on the established institutions.”
Free Electrons, the first global energy startup accelerator program, that connects the world’s most promising energy startups with leading utility companies had its first Module last week, from 21st – 24th of May, in Columbus, Ohio, the home of one of the utilities that backs the program (American Electric Power).
After a Bootcamp where the partners and startups got to know each other – utilities getting to know in detail the potential of having these innovative disruptive solutions applied to their businesses and Startups collecting valuable feedback about their products, features and roadmaps – Module 1 was all about creating the first pilots.
The right number of pilots
After one-on-one meetings and sharing of pilot tools by the Beta-i team, the startups and utilities collaborated on co-designing their pilot project, kicking off the project on the very next day.
The fit between the startups and utilities was so great that they ended up doing more than one pilot per startup, racking a total of 27 pilots among them.
The pilots tackle different issues from green-energy certification to asset management powered by AI to optimization of renewables forecasting, and address both final consumers, SMEs and other entities involved (insurance, for example).
The Next Stop
The next stop in the Free Electrons program will be Hong Kong, from 25th to 28th of June. With some collaborating experience under their belt, the teams will deep dive into the details of each others’ solutions.
The progress and findings of the pilots kicked-off in the first modules will be presented – as sharing knowledge and findings as always been key in Free Electrons program.
Startups and utilities will now have the chance to tailor their projects a little better to the utilities’ needs and kick-off more pilots.
We also expect to see a better definition of the scope of potential pilot projects, and a strong connection with the local ecosystem as the module offers an immersion in the world’s leading cleantech innovation ecosystem, connecting startups to the epicenter of the technology world.
Taking the first steps in the entrepreneurial ecosystem can be daunting – the lingo, the fast pace, the new technologies. But worry not, we have a handy guide for any non-entrepreneur about what they need to know to navigate #LIS and what can they take advantage of.
What is #LIS?
Lisbon Investment Summit is an a surprisingly informal and slightly unexpected startup conference. The motto of the event? #nobullshit. That means business. During these two days, #LIS will promote thought-provoking conversations, will join at the table the most disruptive innovators and the most seasoned investors, and completely change the way you think about your business.
Get to know the lingo
If you want to blend in, you need to dominate the lingo. This is important to make sure you understand where each other attendee is coming from – a startup in the seed stage or raising a series B are not in the same position – which means they also have different things they can offer and are looking for different things. It’s easier than it sounds – we made a little dictionary of what you need to know – find them here and here.
Inspiring Talks
At #LIS you will get access to thought-provoking keynotes, given by world-renowned speakers. That is the case of the #LIS headliner, Andrew Kween, best-selling author of “How To Fix the Future”, who will speak about the dangers of a digital world and how can we overcome them. Maybe some of the talks about disruption will be a bit scary – especially if they fit your sector – but take the chance to be open to learn what chances are taking place – and how to take advantage of them. Check out the agenda of talks here.
Workshops
The workshop stage powered by Google, is the perfect place for you to learn new ways of doing things, from tools to digitize your business, to identifying business opportunities – get your hands ”dirty” in innovation.
Pitch Competition
The pitch competition is where up-and-coming startups (previously selected by the LIS team) pitch on stage to a crowd of angel investors and corporate venture capitalists, looking for investment or new clients. Why should you watch the live pitches? Well, for one, any of these startups could be disrupting your business, so you should keep an eye on them. But also, their new technologies might bring incredible advantages to your business – and they will most likely be open to partnerships, so take the opportunity to get to know them.
Unexpected Side Events
One of the best things at #LIS are its side events. Sure there are spectacularly fun parties, but it’s the unexpected that makes it fun, like in Dinner With a Stranger – you just have to sign-up and get selected to meet a curated group of people in a fabulous Lisbon restaurant. You never know who could meet – maybe your next business partner, maybe someone who inspires you to venture into your own business idea. We promise you one thing – it will be memorable. Wait no more – get your tickets to #LIS19 here.
