Companies with a Portuguese DNA attract capital with their talent and international commitment from day one.
Portuguese tech companies haven’t been able to make that much money in one year. 2021 is not over and these companies have already raised 1.1 billion euros in capital injections into the private market.
In other words, they for the first time exceeded the level of the unicorn, which values these companies at at least one billion dollars (883.5 million euros), according to the current exchange rate.
Talent quality and outward-facing market thinking were cited as key reasons for success with investors.
Talkdesk, SWORD Health, Feedzai, Remote and OutSystems are the companies with Portuguese DNA that have contributed the most to registration. They have focused a total of $992 million (€876.4 million) in funding in the past 12 months, the Dealroom platform shows.
The Portuguese record follows the European trend: from 2020 to 2021, investment in technology tripled from 41 to 121 billion euros, assures Antonio Miguel, managing partner of influential investment firm Maze.
However, Calouste Gulbenkian’s finance specialist notes that “there is a greater concentration of finance in fewer companies.”
From outside
This year, there were 112 investment rounds, compared to 116 in 2020 and 141 in 2019, which is a record number of operations. The previous maximum investment dates back to 2018, when 498 million euros were injected.
Betting on technology is also due to “enhance betting on alternative investment classes” due to “the long context of low interest rates,” says Alexandre Santos.
Venture capital firm founder Chamaeleon also notes that “the pandemic and greater concern about the future of the planet have accelerated a host of trends and increased appetite to invest in more innovative and disruptive projects.”
Investors in Portuguese technology are concentrated in Europe and the USA. The more advanced the stage of financing, the greater the dominance of international venture capital.
national unicorns
The five technologies that have attracted the most investment have in common a national unicorn – Farfetch was the first to achieve this status, in 2015, but has been publicly listed since 2018, in the US.
two digits
In addition to unicorns, there were five other national technologies that hit double-digit capital injections: Jscrambler, AceCann, Casafari, Statio, and Infraspeak.
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