The Hottest Startups in Lisbon

Last October, Lisbon mayor Carlos Moedas—who previously served as European Commissioner for Innovation—opened the Lisbon Unicorn Factory, a startup accelerator inspired by the successful Parisian Station F. The new tech hub plans to enroll twenty scale-ups every year into an eight-month acceleration program with mentorship from experienced entrepreneurs. “We’re now seeing the first wave of successful entrepreneurs starting to give back to the community with their knowledge,” says André Miranda, CEO of Musiversal. With over 2,000 registered startups, Portugal is the European country with the most startups per capita—13 percent above the average. The reasons? “Initiatives like Startup Portugal and corporate-startups matchmaking programs attract international talent, provide funding opportunities, and create a favorable regulatory environment for startups,” says Katya Ivanova, CEO of startup AssetFloow.

Bairro will be part of the first batch of startups at Lisbon’s Unicorn Factory. The delivery firm—founded in 2020 by Ukrainian entrepreneur Artem Kokhan, Milana Dovzhenko and Maksym Gatsuts—has already raised €5.4 M from seed investors like Leonid Dovladbegyan, director of Russian online hypermarket Vprok.ru and Alex Vasiliev, former director of JD.com. The pitch? Enabling brands, producers, and retailers to connect directly with their customers by cutting out the middlemen. “Brands store their products in our strategically located warehouses, and we process orders that come from their website or marketplaces like Uber Eats,” Dovzhenko says. “This means we handle the entire order fulfillment process on their behalf, from receiving orders to picking, packing, and shipping the products to customers.” According to Dovzhenko, Bairro’s software achieves a 98 percent rate of “perfect orders” (orders processed accurately and delivered on time). “This outperforms the current market metrics, which can range from 40 to 60 percent.” She says. “We make it up to nine times cheaper and faster than other solutions in the market.” bairrodirect.com

One of Splink’s best-selling products is a three-dimensional miniature replica of Cristiano Ronaldo’s jersey made from vinyl, acrylic and biodegradable plastic. Called MyJersey, this collectible also allows football fans to access AR features with their mobile phones—such as touring stadia and dressing rooms, or taking selfies with avatars of footballers from eleven teams, including the Brazilian National team and La Liga’s Atletico Madrid. “We brought something new to a market that’s very traditional in how it makes money, which is either by ticketing and buying and selling players,” says CEO Ivan Braz. “Sports teams can have access to a platform where we gather and analyze the data we are collecting from fans using our AR experiences.” Founded in 2020 by Braz, Dulce Guarda and Hugo Matinho, the startup has raised €8.35m—their seed funding was led by The Riva Group. Next year, they want to prove themselves in the Premier League. “Having [English] teams come to us saying they would like to do business was a milestone.” besplink.com

Musician André Miranda, CEO of Musiversal, definitely didn’t fail fast: “I spent over a decade learning how to write music,” he says. “Less than one percent of what I wrote actually got performed in real life, and pretty much none of it was produced professionally. You can imagine how frustrating this must feel.” Knowing that many of his fellow musicians faced similar challenges, in 2018, he launched music production platform Musiversal, with cofounder Xavier Jameson. The startup offers creators a subscription that gives unlimited access to professional studio musicians and live remote collaboration, at rates that are ten times cheaper than standard pay-per-gig fees. “Musiversal is the only company in the world, aside from orchestras, that pays musicians a stable income every month,” says Miranda. “We have a near 100 percent retention rate with our musicians.” With over one million minutes of online sessions recorded, Musiversal has raised $4.8 million from investors including VC firm Shilling. musiversal.com

Pleez is one of the many examples of companies that successfully pivoted during the pandemic. Initially focused on developing a dine-in smart menu, the food-tech startup, founded in 2020, now offers a platform that aggregates delivery data and uses machine learning to improve the management of restaurants. Using a dashboard, restaurateurs can access real-time sales data, assess the impact of menu changes, and look up prices and promotions by competitors. The dashboard also offers AI-generated menu images and captions as well as pricing and menu recommendations. “Before, the menu was static,” says CEO Afonso Pinheiro. “Now you can benefit from real-time changes and answers to the market. Restaurants have their delivery channels on auto-pilot—They just need to cook.” Pleez is currently in Portugal and Spain and it has raised €3.5 million, in a seed funding round led by Berlin’s FoodLabs. trypleez.com

In its first iteration, Bloq.it was a smart locker where people could safely store items in outdoor public areas—but then Covid hit. Founded by Miha Jagodic, João Lopes and Ricardo Carvalho in 2019, Bloq.it now provides smart lockers directly to logistics and retail companies. “We provide hardware, software, operational services, and know-how to allow companies to build smart locker networks for their end-customers.” says Lopes. “This allows delivery companies to deliver their parcels in a cheaper, more efficient way.” The startup has placed over a thousand smart lockers throughout Europe, for clients including online marketplace Vinted and logistics multinational DHL. bloq.it

When he was studying biomedical engineering at university, Diogo Tecelão was challenged by a lecturer to develop a device that could help sufferers of chronic cough, a symptom that affects 700 million adults. “He was frustrated because there were no tools available,” Tecelão says. “He inspired us to start spending our evenings brainstorming and prototyping.” The result is a wearable patch that patients can attach to their abdomen, so they can track cough patterns and triggers. C-mo Medical Solutions, launched in 2020 by Tecelão and cofounders Miguel Andrade, Filipe Valadas, Alexandra Lopes, Sara Lobo, and Nuno Neuparth, has raised €4.8m in a seed investment round led by Boehringer Ingelheim Venture Fund. c-mo.solutions

During his stint as a hostel manager, Ricardo Figueiredo noticed his guests had a frequent request: “Every traveler who arrives early or has a flight at the end of the day asks the same question: what can I do with my luggage?” says Figueiredo. In 2019, with cofounders Diogo Correia and Hugo Fonseca, he launched a luggage pickup, storage and delivery service called LUGGit. Through their platform, travelers can request a driver to collect their luggage wherever they are, to be delivered to them later at a convenient location. “Our mission is to deliver an end-to-end luggage-free travel experience,” Figueiredo says. “We're building a future where people would have their luggage collected from their homes before travel and receive them at their address destination.” The company operates in Portugal and Spain, working with hospitality companies including GuestReady and Sonder. luggit.app

José Costa Rodrigues, CEO of proptech startup Relive, likes to describe his firm as the “Y combinator for real-estate agents” Relive is a brokerage platform that helps solo estate agents and boutique agencies manage their business, providing access to marketing leads, financial services, and personalized content, among other features. “We built a platform to help real-estate agents find more clients, be more efficient in their day-to-day, and close more deals,” says Rodrigues. Cofounded by Rodrigues, Sérgio Ferrás, and Henrique Brás in 2021, the startup was incubated by the Techstars accelerator, has raised $1.2m led by Shilling, and has already expanded to Texas in the US. relive.pt

Without any cameras or sensors, AssetFloow can tell retailers how shoppers behave inside their stores. Using only anonymous sales data and digitized shop floor plans, AssetFloow’s AI platform creates a store’s digital twin, generating heat maps and shopper’s paths, as well as providing recommendations about product placements and promotional campaigns. “Understanding the shopper journey inside the store is the key to detect anomalies in sales,” says CEO Katya Ivanova. “Our solution has demonstrated the capability to detect and adapt to shifts in shopper behavior, resulting in 30-day sales increase and a 90 percent reduction in management costs.” The startup, founded in 2021 by Ivanova and Ricardo Santos, is currently used in 335 stores in Portugal, the UK, Italy, and Brazil. assetfloow.com

Since being profiled in this list in 2022, HRtech startup Coverflex has raised a €15 million series A led by Paris-based SCOR Ventures, and grew more than 400 percent year-on-year, serving over 100,000 employees from more than 3,600 clients, including companies such as Santander, Bolt, Emma, and Revolut. The startup, founded in 2021 by Luis Rocha, Miguel Santo Amaro, Nuno Pinto, Rui Carvalho, and Tiago Fernandes, has also recently launched a digital meal-voucher service in Italy and will expand into the Spanish market this year. Coverflex gives companies an employee compensation platform that allows HR managers to easily design bespoke compensation packages and other benefits. coverflex.com

This article appears in the January/February 2024 issue of WIRED UK magazine.

This article was originally published by WIRED UK