Sharing Lisbon’s Startup Scene With The Global Tech Community

Sharing Lisbon’s Startup Scene With The Global Tech Community

by | Nov 21, 2017 | Startups

Last week, Lisbon was host to the world’s largest tech conference, the Web Summit. As a result, tens of thousands of people from the tech community made their way to our vibrant capital.

To welcome international guests, Beta-i organized a side event. We brought together the entire startup community on one afternoon for the Lisbon Startup Tour. And, this year, for the first time the tour had a special track made for journalists, representing BBC, Deutsche Welle, Radio France Internationale, La Voz de Galicia, Les Echos and ECO.

La Voz de Galicia quoted Pedro Rocha Vieira’s “[Lisbon] is one of the most important cities in the world when it comes to innovation, ideas, and projects”, underlining the importance of an event like Web Summit to bring investment and entice companies to move to Lisbon, like it already happened in London, San Francisco and Berlin.

The importance of a startup tour for correspondent journalists is that they are used to write about everything that happens in the country, not about tech in particular. Taking the time to guide them through the Portuguese ecosystem can only enrich the ecosystem and make them pay more attention to the melting pot Lisbon is turning into.

“A perfect intro into Lisbon’s startup scene ahead of Web Summit, well-organized, informative and fun to a recommendation to anyone who is curious to learn more about Lisbon’s young entrepreneurs and the startup ecosystem”. 
Barbara Noppinger @ Advantage Austria, Lisbon

However, the Lisbon Startup Tour is also geared at groups of investors, entrepreneurs, and ecosystem players. These groups crisscross throughout the city to entrepreneurial hot spots such as Hub Criativo do Beato Lisbon’s’ awe-inspiring 35,000m2 future innovation and creative hub, distributed amongst 20 buildings being renovated to house national and international entities in the areas of technology, innovation, and creative industries.

Among the stops on this tour was Bright Pixel , the group of experience builders and technologists,  Portugal’s next unicorn Uniplaces, who raised one of the biggest Series A in Europe and who has one of the top startup offices in The World According to Inc. Magazine, Talkdesk, the cloud call center software whose founders have made it to Forbes ’30 under 30 list, Unbabel the first Portuguese startup on Y Combinator who is leveraging Artificial Intelligence to empower over 40,000 translators worldwide. And unique coworking spaces like Cowork Lisboa in the trendy LX factory.  

“Lisbon Startup Tour is a great initiative to give an inside perspective of Lisbon as one of the hottest StartUp hubs in Europe”
Nuno Pimenta @Google

 

If you could not make it to this year’s edition, make sure you stay tuned for the next one.

 

Sharing Lisbon’s Startup Scene With The Global Tech Community

Third Time’s a Charm for the Lisbon Startup Tour

by | Oct 25, 2017 | Corporates, Investors, Startups

Back in 2015, Paddy Cosgrave explained the reasons for Web Summit moving to Lisbon. He said it’s “for academics to figure out why in certain cities at a certain moment there’s just a great community spirit and real optimism about a better tomorrow”, adding “I saw it in incubators I visited and in the bars where I went for drinks with young entrepreneurs and investors”.

It is exactly that optimism, along with hard work, that has turned Lisbon into a melting pot for entrepreneurs. To share this with the outside world, Beta-i is bringing our third edition of The Lisbon Startup Tour, in partnership with Google, as a side-event during the week of Web Summit. Taking place on November 6th.

The tour offers five different tracks that you can choose from according to your interests. All of them feature visits to the offices of incredible startups. Take your pick from startups such as Uniplaces (raised one of the biggest series A in Europe), Talkdesk (founders made it to Forbes’ 30 under 30 list) and Unbabel (first Portuguese startup on Y Combinator), just to mention a few. For a complete overview of the different tracks and the startups involved visit the Lisbon Startup Tour site.

The Lisbon Startup Tour is a great opportunity to immerse in the startup culture, mingle with founders, hear their success stories, get to know the most noteworthy startups and hubs, and get an intimate introduction to the community hotspots of the Portuguese startup ecosystem. It is also an opportunity to live the city, walk in the entrepreneurs’ shoes and see firsthand what everyone is talking about.

Slots are limited to 25 people for each track so make sure you grab your spot by signing up here.