by silvia | Feb 28, 2019 | Corporates, Investors, Startups, Uncategorized
Present since its early stage in the USA and Europe, Attila’s co-founders traveled to Lisbon to join the fall edition 2018 of Lisbon Challenge. With a product directed at commercial banks, they made their way through Lisbon Challenge and are trying to conquer the Portuguese market.
What is your product?
Attila is an AI-based Virtual Financial Advisor able to engage retail banks’ customers in meaningful and automated financial conversations with a deep focus on customer understanding.
What made you apply to Lisbon Challenge?
The Portugal banking industry is a favorable market for Attila due to the strategic orientation of the Portuguese banks. Today they are focused, more than ever before, on improving their customer experience and customer journey’s to ensure their survival in the digital era. Lisbon Challenge represented a perfect soft landing opportunity for us in this unique and growing market.
Why is Portugal an attractive market for Attila?
Right now, is a good moment for us because the Portuguese banks are willing to do a leapfrog in their digital processes and that’s what Attila stands for: enabling banks to quickly catch up tech companies in terms of UX thanks to Machine Learning. There’s also a growing and dynamic tech ecosystem we can learn from and build partnerships with.
What are Attila’s goals for the Portuguese market?
Our main objective is to build successful case studies by finetuning our product to the needs of south European market. This represents a gateway and solid reference for the European market as a whole and the markets across the Atlantic.
What was the biggest win for Attila in the programme?
Having the opportunity to meet customers allowed us to reach a higher level of validation, adjust our value proposition and generate a pipeline of leads including top Portuguese and international Banks.
In which way Lisbon Challenge’s team helped you the best?
Lisbon Challenge’s team gave us honest and straightforward feedback that helped us challenge our ideas and plans.
What have been your biggest accomplishments since Lisbon Challenge?
Unlocking a project with one of the largest banks in Portugal – we’re very excited about it!
What is your advice for startups trying to make it in Lisbon?
Don’t hesitate to directly knock on the relevant doors, whether it be customers, partners, or investors, you will absolutely find people willing to listen and open to new ideas. Do not wait for some miracle to happen.
by Carolina Santos | Dec 7, 2017 | Investors, Startups
After 10 weeks of intensive work and mentorship, the eight startups from Lisbon Challenge found out which ones were getting an investment, but there were no winners or losers, because even the ones who weren’t invested have already closed their first pilots and are ready to make their baby startups grow.
It is not typical for an Investor’s day to be at a brewery but it turned out to be the perfect scenario. They walked to the stage full of confidence and nerves, we could feel their dry mouths while they were pitching and if we could guess their heart rates were racing like crazy. The smile of relief each one of them had while leaving the stage, after asking several questions from investors, was priceless.
They did what they were mentored to do and all of them delivered flawless pitches and made everybody proud. It was good to see that those eight teams became friends, kind of a family and that what an acceleration program is also about.
Yesterday Luvotels, Sparkl and Placeme found out they were being invested. Luvotels got 50k, Sparkl also got 50k and Placeme got 75k, a surprise to all but mainly to those who got it. The ones who weren’t invested are going to continue to work hard towards their goal and we know they are going far.
Today the office is quieter and emptier than it used to be and we all already miss them. The good thing is there will always be another Lisbon Challenge.
Follow the footsteps of these startups and get 10K in 10 weeks.
by Carolina Santos | Nov 30, 2017 | Startups
It was 7 a.m. last Tuesday when the eight startups from Lisbon Challenge took the train to Aveiro. Waiting for them they had Adriana Costa, Director of IEUA – Incubadora de Empresas da Universidade de Aveiro, and Cândida Cardoso, Manager of Incubation Services, who drove them around the main touristic sights of the city.
Adriana Costa showing the Creative Science Park to the Startups.
Today more than ever all partnerships are important and the one between Lisbon Challenge and IEUA has just now begin to grow. The truth is: the ecosystem involves the whole country, it does not start or end in Lisbon and working together with other accelerators can benefit both parties because there’s an exchange of knowledge that is crucial both to startups and accelerators.
One of the highlights of the trip was visiting the Creative Science Park which will be inaugurated on 2018 and where some of the startups will have the privilege to work and grow as well as be close to companies such as Bosch, Nestlé or Altice and, at the same time, close to the university.
The startups pitched to investors from Red Angels, Best Horizon and LC Ventures – all of them are going to be on Investor’s Day on December 6 – to practice for the big day, get some feedback and to start growing on the investors.
Parkio and Monitor Fish with our investor Pedro Falcão.
There was still time to meet PET Universal, a software for vets and IEUA alumni as well as 3D printer labs from BEEVERYCREATIVE, also an alumni. And, of course, a trip to Aveiro would not be complete without some “ovos moles” and other typical sweets.
Now it is time to prepare for the most important pitch of their lives, wait for the grand opening of the Creative Science Park, pack their bags and grow their business in Aveiro.
by Carolina Santos | Nov 23, 2017 | Startups
It is not every day that you get the chance to have two Google mentors giving your startup insights on digital strategy, and when you have them for two intensive days, that it is even better!
That is exactly what the eight startups from the 8th edition of the Lisbon Challenge got. For an intensive two days, José Ramón Saura, a CTO focused on digital marketing and Maria Isla who works at Hackity (read her piece on that day here) and focus on digital strategy flew from Spain to help startups to market their business.
Eight weeks into the challenge, the Startups are getting ready for Investor’s Day on December 6. Both José and Maria found startups “willing to listen and to learn and eager to grow their business”.
The mentors taught the startups how to identify their target, their interests in order to create a digital strategy and achieve their goals. There is an explicit need of knowing where and why a startup wants to go that will save them time and money. For two days all eight startups forgot about the hard work it is to launch a startup or a product and focused on a marketing and communication plan because the truth is: even a CEO reads the news.
José said he was impressed by these early-stage startups due to their “interesting projects, shifting through different technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine learning”, and by how they all are “talented and gifted”.
What impressed Maria the most on Lisbon Challenge comparing to other acceleration programs is the fact that this one gathers “people from different countries”, which in Maria’s opinion is the secret to learn and grow because “if you want to go global you have to know other markets, create connections, share knowledge, work with different people” and more than ever this is important in the startup world. Lesson’s learned and now fingers crossed that they will all thrive.
by isabelsalgueiro | Nov 21, 2017 | Startups
As an accelerator, we view our path as similar to a startup’s path. We have a hypothesis of how we should run things, we test it, measure it, see room for improvements, and re-launch it. This has been our routine for the past 8 editions. Now, as we are kicking off the 9th edition, we know we’re on the right track.
The past editions have given us four key learnings; four good reasons to be part of Lisbon Challenge 18′ Edition.
Learning N.1: it’s all about the money. Or is it?
We used to think that for startups, it was all about the money, but now we know it really isn’t. Founders value us way beyond the funding, and in fact, the 10K is really only meant to help founders survive financially during the 10 weeks of the program. The additional 50K which we award to the top startups on the final Investors Day (which in this edition will take place at the Lisbon Investment Summit, if you don’t know what it is, you NEED to check it out!), is the remaining funding to help startups solidify their roadmap until a proper seed round. We fund 10K for 1.5% at the start of the program, and then an additional 50K for 5.5% at the end, giving a decent starting valuation. But we also do much more than that.
Learning N.2: pushing concrete milestones is key for the success of the startups (and the program)
We collect startup feedback after every workshop, talk, mentoring session and at the end of each phase of the program (the program has 4 phases: Validation, Product, Launch, Investment). Not only does this keep us on our toes, but it measures exactly how much we are literally impacting on the startup’s progress. And the results have been mind blowing. Currently, we have a satisfaction rate of 95% and we set specific milestones at the end of each phase, really pushing execution to the limit. The main message here is that we only progress if the startups progress, and sometimes life in an accelerator seems tough, but nothing is designed to make you waste time.
Learning N.3: In mentors, less is more
A majority of our effort, I would say 70%, is bringing or connecting mentors to the program. Our biggest learning is that less is more when it comes to mentors. In the past, we put a lot of effort in bringing as many mentors as possible, from the most diverse backgrounds, because serendipity plays a huge role in the life of a startup. But nowadays we prefer to have less, with higher relevance. We are strong believers that in the very initial stages of building a startup, founders should be exposed to other founders that have already gone through the challenge of building a startup, to learn as much as possible and obtain feedback, guidance, best practices, and mistakes to avoid. As the program continues and startups become more confident in their validation and in the direction to pursue, less general feedback is needed but more specialized expertise help is needed, where we aim to bring industry experts to break down specific problems you will have.
In this edition only, we had the pleasure of bringing some of these mentors:
Cristina Fonseca – Co-founder @ Talksdesk & investor
David Rowan – Editor at large of WIRED & investor
Felix Peteresen – Serial entrepreneur, MD Europe @ Samsung NEXT
Vasco Pedro – CEO @ Unbabel, a YC startup & PHD Language Technologies
Moritz Seidel – Founder @ Webfair & Serial entrepreneur & investor
Miguel Ribeiro – Head of Growth Europe @ Zomato
Learning N.4: selecting the right startups is hard!
There is no other way of saying it. Selecting the right startups is really hard. There are so many factors to consider. Often we have rejected startups, not because they weren’t amazing, but because we knew we are not the right partner to help them in the long run. In the end, we try to select the startups we know we can build a long-lasting relationship with, because we want to be the first money in, but the last partner out. Four years in since the first Lisbon Challenge, and we still keep a close relationship with some of the startups and help them out as much as possible. And this really defines how we outline the selection process.
Let’s keep the learnings coming. Apply to Lisbon Challenge by January 25th if you want to be a part of this journey with us!
