Attentive has been in Beta-i’s ecosystem for a long time – they were winners of the Fall Edition of Lisbon Challenge in 2015. Since then, they have grown their company and took advantage of Beta-i’s network and events – just like Lisbon Investment Summit.
We spoke with Daniel Araújo, CEO and Co-founder of Attentive.us about their relationship with events like LIS.
ReThink: What first attracted you to attend Lisbon Investment Summit the first time around?
Daniel Araújo: We were part of the Beta-i community even before the first edition of the Lisbon Investment Summit, so when we heard about it we were very excited about having an informal gathering of many of the key European investors interacting with early-stage Portuguese startups. Since that first edition, Beta-i always brought a nice element of surprise, in the content and in the venues, that kept the event’s unique positioning untouched.
RT: What did you enjoy more in your experience at LIS?
DA: I’d highlight the vibe that you feel among all the attendees – positive, open, constructive. There’s always a lot to talk about around the content of the panels, and the event feels designed to leave some room for casual interactions. This makes it incredibly fruitful. Did I mention that everyone seems to be having a great time? 🙂
RT: How did your attendance at LIS impact your business?
DA: Every year, participating in LIS allows us to strengthen and reinforce our connections to the ecosystem, especially around investors. We’ve got several investors that we meet only at LIS, despite us participating in other events across Europe and the US. We also got to meet many partners of the Portuguese ecosystem, which have supported us in so many different ways over the years. I get asked many times by early-stage founders how to kickstart their network, and my invariable answer is: go to the Lisbon Investment Summit – network and absorb the great content.
RT: You recently announced your latest investment round of $1.2M, led by Mangrove Capital and Indico Capital Partners. Did Beta-i or LIS help you get in touch with your investors, or in some other way?
DA: Beta-i and LIS are intrinsically linked to our company’s first steps, so they played – actually, they still play today – a very important role in our development and growth. Not only did the event kickstart our network when we were starting, but we also refined and tuned our pitch, improved the way we communicate our vision and contributed to us getting access to TechStars. After meeting several dozens of investors, Mangrove, Indico and we were incredibly aligned on our vision for what Attentive can become. Moreover, they have an incredible track record, which will surely help us as we grow.
RT: Why do you think Portuguese startups are so relevant and able to attract foreign investment?
DA: There’s a very combination of benefits that Portuguese startups can and should take advantage of, several of them have been shown repeatedly at #LIS: English-speaking, global ambitions, strong universities, and talent. In the last few years, as investors started to come for LIS and the Web Summit, they have built a local trust network that gives them the confidence in our talent. I’m pretty sure that will only increase over the next editions of LIS!
Gil Dibner, Founder and Managing Partner at Angular Ventures, has been confirmed as a speaker on Lisbon Investment Summit, happening on the 6th and 7th of June in sunny Lisbon.
The first time Gil came to Lisbon Investment Summit was a random accident, but a fortuitous one: he ended up meeting a founder of a company that became an angel investment. “I hope it’s the first of many” he added.
For startups hoping to get this type of luck and casually meet an investor at #LIS, or startups applying to compete on stage at the pitch competition, Gil suggests they think global: “Remember that every stage is a global stage. There really is no such thing as a “local” startup or startup hub.”
Thinking global is also one of the reasons Gil believes are in the growth of Lisbon as a startup hub, able to attract investment from around the world:
It’s increasingly clear that technology is a global business – and that great innovation can come from anywhere. It’s also clear that Lisbon has a strong and growing track record of producing companies with global significance.
Gil Dibner will be at Lisbon Investment Summit, an informal event that gathers the most innovative startups, seasoned investors and daring corporate innovators, happening in Lisbon on June 6th and 7th. Get tickets here.
Lisbon Challenge by Beta-i, our flagship accelerator program, kicked off today in our Beta-i building, for its 11th edition.
Get to know one another
The day started with really getting to know each other. After a healthy breakfast to break the ice, Ricardo Marvão, Co-founder and Head of Education at Beta-i, spoke to the teams about the history of Beta-i, and the scope of the team’s work.
Eduardo, Head of Acceleration at Beta-i, and the Lisbon Challenge’s team walked them through the schedule and highlights of the program:
Workshops on methodologies with the Beta-i team;
Contact with alumni from the program and people who have been through the entrepreneurial journey;
Mentorship from a vast network of entrepreneurs, investors and corporate partners.
Alumni Talks
This year, Lisbon Challenge’s teams got an inspirational talk from alumni of the program – Miguel Santo Amaro, co-founder of Uniplaces and André Miranda, founder of Musiversal.
Mainly they spoke of how, at the time, they applied the methodologies learned in the program and were able to grow their business through that:
Because we validated with clients a lot of things we were doing right and wrong, we were able to grow our operations. We didn’t do any sales pitching or advertising – just by listening to people we adjusted the service, it cost us zero, and we were able to grow our sales because satisfied customers came back with bigger projects.
Miguel Santo Amaro also shared a lot of his experience as a founder of Uniplaces – from his struggles with being a first-mover in the market to their pitch to investors to Uniplaces’ pivots.
Like André said, “This is not fluff advice, I really think if you keep this advice in mind, you’re gonna take much more from the program.”
First Pitch
The startups will pitch their solutions for the first time for the Beta-i team and the ecosystem of alumni and mentors. It’s an exciting moment for all – for the startups it’s the first impression they are making on the ecosystem, for the team is a chance to learn something new. It’s also a good memory to have – so the teams will know how much they grew in the program.
Read about the startups joining the spring edition here.
Free Electrons, the first global energy startup accelerator program, that connects the world’s most promising energy startups with leading utility companies, just selected the 15 teams that will now join the piloting phase program, after the Bootcamp.
The Bootcamp
The Bootcamp week is a critical part of the success of the program, and this year was held in Dublin and hosted by ESB. During this stage, utilities got to know in detail the potential of having these innovative disruptive solutions applied to their businesses. For Startups, it represents an enormous opportunity, not only to speak directly with 10 global companies but also to collect valuable feedback about their products, features and roadmaps.
Just by attending the Bootcamp startups are able to test their business cases potential on a global platform, enriched by the different expertise from the 10 utilities in their home markets. In just 3 days, startups need to quickly adjust to all the utility requirements, work together with them in creating room for a pilot to be held, and then present a viable pilot case.
The top 30 Bootcamp startups also had the chance to talk with CEOs from Free Electrons ’17 & ’18 winning startups – Sebastian Groh from ME SOLshare and Rui Beon form BeOn Energy – whose testimonials are key examples of the impact the program can have in helping startups scale fast, get funding or close new deals, alongside other alumni, Jungle.ai and Sterblue, who also shared their experience on the program.
The Bootcamp has also allowed for the opportunity to showcase Irish startup ecosystem, with several local companies invited to join the event.
The 15 finalist startups
The overall quality level of the 30 startups that qualified to the Bootcamp was amazing – all of them helped the utilities learn, and had really talented founders, that are already having an impact in the future of the energy sector.
But the 15 startups joining the piloting phase of Free Electrons ‘19 are Akselos SA, Ambi Labs Limited, CARTO, DEXMA, Energyworx, Enging – Make Solutions, envelio, ev.energy, GridBeyond, Heila Technologies Inc., Hygge Power, Save To Compete, Sensewaves, Solandeo and WePower.
These 15 startups will join the utilities on the 1st module, that will take place in Columbus, Ohio (EUA), from May 21st to 24th.
Heptasense, a portuguese startup, was selected to join Data Pitch, an ambitious European project to accelerate startups from the continent, and challenged to solve a series of challenges by working with data. Beta-i, in partnership with the European Commission, ensures coordination of this acceleration program.
Heptasense, whose solution is already being used in Mercedes factories, is an artificial intelligence software that can recognize and predict accidents on the streets to alert operational teams in real-time.
One of the biggest causes of traffic, and consequently high carbon emissions, are accidents. This problem is worse on highways, because it is hard to detect on time, and very difficult to manage afterwards. Heptasense is a software platform that leverages data from surveillance cameras to detect accidents and alert the operational teams in real-time. Although this solves part of the problem, the goal is also to mitigate such risks. That’s why the platform is also merging data from weather, GPS and historical accidents data to predict when and where accidents may occur so that operational teams can be ready to act.
Heptasense is one of 29 new Data Pitch startups that were this week introduced at a celebratory reception held at the Google Campus in London. This new cohort brings the total number of Data Pitch companies to 47, each receiving up to €100K equity free funding, expert mentoring, investment opportunities, and access to data from established businesses and the public sector.
The project is coordinated by Beta-i, in partnership with the University of Southampton, the Open Data Institute and french data platform Dawex. The initiative, which kicked off officially today, will be financed by the research and innovation program Horizon 2020, the European Union, and each startup will be in the program for six months.
“This is a fantastic opportunity to build a platform for collaboration between startups and companies covering all of Europe. Startups will have the opportunity to access huge data blocks from some of the largest European companies in order to try to resolve previously identified challenges, using the development of new products and services. This European accelerator brings together a wide and diverse batch of industries, working in an engaging and collaborative way, and we see this opportunity as a chance to use our experience, as we expand our know-how and methodologies. “
Ricardo Marvão, co-founder and Head of Education of the Beta-i
The ambition is to create an entire ecosystem of innovation for Europe, a space where big companies can work closely with agile startups so they can innovate and learn from each other, using the data as a basis to solve the problems.
Lisbon Challenge by Beta-i, our flagship accelerator program, will be kicking off its 11th edition – the Spring Edition of 2019 – next Monday, April 8th.
Having a startup is probably the toughest business there is. Lisbon Challenge was built to help founders grow 1 year in just 3 months. The program’s methodologies are focused not only on growing the business but also in preparing founders to transform difficulties into learnings and to see problems as opportunities.
The founders joining the program will be challenged in their assumptions and challenged to gain a better understanding of the problem they’re solving, their clients and the solution they’re building, to bring them closer to a product market fit.
It’s going to be an intense 3 months! So, without further ado, we present you the 8 startups joining the Spring Edition of Lisbon Challenge by Beta-i (click the names to learn about each startup):
ARANMI
Africa’s foremost SME friendly on-demand supply chain marketplace.
Country: Nigeria Founders: Michael Iyanro and Gideon Olanrewaju Website: http://www.aranmi.com
git//scale
Breakthrough platform for open source projects serving enterprise clients.
Country: Portugal Founders: Diogo Lemos Pereira e Nuno Barrocas Website: http://www.gitscale.io
Hirefreehands Inc.
Freelancer hiring marketplace for entrepreneurs, startups & SMEs.
Country: Nigeria Founders: Sunkanmi Ola, Abel Agoi, Jime Akpusugh and Gabriel Esu Website: http://www.hirefreehands.tech
OutboundSales.io
SaaS B2B Sales Platform for Enterprise Sales Teams.
