Portugal has more than 2,000 startups. Fintechs are ready to leverage ecosystem but ask for less taxes and more collaboration – O Jornal Económico
The Portuguese entrepreneurship ecosystem is recent and of short scale, but one of the best assets that Portugal has, with fast-growing companies that represent around 1% of the national Gross Domestic Product (GDP). In total there are 2,159 young companies that have already raised 434.5 million in investment, in venture capital and other sources of financing.
These are three of the main overviews of the “Startup & Entrepreneurial Ecosystem” report, prepared by the IDC consultancy and presented this Tuesday at the roundtable “Fintechs – Influence on the Financial Ecosystem and Main Trends for the Future”, organized by Mastercard.
Izicap, Nickel and Ubirider were the three startups present – and National Manager from Mastercard in Portugal explained why: “We invited three startups that are a good example of the real economy, startups that are solving real cases that society has pressing: mobility, support for small traders and new relationships with consumers who have a Bank account. Three practical examples of how digitization and innovation are key words for improvement”.
Izicap is a fintech supported by the payments company’s Start Path Program, which provides innovative loyalty and digital marketing solutions for small merchants and acquirers. In other words, it transforms the payment card into a loyalty card, by realizing if the customer is in fact a fan of the store list – and if perhaps a beneficiary even more as a result. Miguel Mateus, co-founder and COO, says that data feeds the closed cycle between consumers and merchants, with transaction information (how many times the person went to the store and how much they spent) behind it. The company currently has 1.5 million subscribers, mostly in France, where Miguel Mateus’ partner is.
Nickel is the digital bank of the BNB Paribas group, which will start operating in Portugal until March 2022. The CEO of fintech in the national market, João Guerra, took the stage to offer some advice to startups: “think about simplicity, about user experience, scale and internationalization”.
In the voice of founder and CEO, Paulo Ferreira dos Santos, Ubirider highlighted the importance of the Cidade Possível co-creation initiative, launched by Mastercard to bring together cities, companies and communities and identify common challenges and develop joint solutions that promote inclusive and sustainable urban development .
“The collaborative work is part of Mastercard’s DNA and, in the case of Portugal in particular, Portugal has been welcoming and creating according to the conditions to host more startups and fintechs, either because it helps them to establish themselves here, to scale out or to attract investment”, said Maria Antónia Saldanha, at the presentation, reinforcing that the company has already accelerated 260 startups.
But is Portugal well positioned on the map? Gabriel Coimbra, general director of IDC Portugal, and Faber adviser, has no doubts that public policies have helped in the development of the ecosystem, through monetary support, Technological Free Zones or the creation of visas for digital nomads. However, it alerts to the low cost of talent when compared to other Member States and to the challenges faced by entrepreneurs, namely by 69% asking for a reduction in the tax burden and 46% for bureaucratic simplification. A vision in which the CEO of Nickel reviews: “It was important to harmonize taxation with Europe, there was a reduction in the tax burden.”
Still, the IDC leader emphasizes that Portugal is 13% above the European average in number of startups per capita – with a third opera in the area of information and communication technologies and more than 40% are based in Porto and Lisbon – and it is halfway through the table in Europe in terms of venture capital, with 166 million dollars (about 147 million euros) accounted for in 2019. “There is a lot of ambition on the part of startups, which is great. Most of them want to be global, a reference technology, a unicorn or are already thinking about an IPO”, said Gabriel Coimbra.