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Business Angels in Portugal: Looking for one?

Early on your startup, on your first <1M€ round, you will probably consider Business Angels as an important source for funding, expertise, network, etc.

Portuguese Business Angel market is becoming more mature but there is limited information on the players.

This post aims to address this topic and support entrepreneurs find Portuguese based Business Angels. To complement this post you can also visit APBA — Associação Portugesa de Business Angels and FNABA — Federação Nacional de Associações de Business Angels.

As a Business Angel, I invest in mission driven and tech founders. If you believe we can have fit, connect with me via LinkedIn here and request an appointment here

Business Angels Market

Portuguese business angels invested 13M€ in 70 deals (180k€ per deal) in the first half of 2019, according to Beta-i report (thanks to Pedro Falcão, LC Ventures and Beta-i crew for putting it together).

Portuguese Business Angels can put up to 200k-300k€ individually in a first round. Above 300k€ it is unlikely for a Portuguese Business Angel to lead the round and you would need to find a local VC. Fortunately, there are plenty of options of seed Venture Capital funds (for more read Venture Capital funds in Portugal and The rise of seed Venture Capital in Portugal)

In the past years, the Portuguese Government through IFD launched financial lines aiming to support Bussines Angels investing in Portuguese based early-stage startups. This and the increasing maturity of the market fuel the creation of several Business Angels Syndicates and today the majority of investments are made through Syndicates (not by individuals itself).

Portugal Venture Capital and Business Angels report

Business Angels Syndicates

In a nutshell, a Syndicate is a group of Business Angels that invest together. Syndicates can have as many as 70 investors (e.g, RedAngels).

Olissipo Way, Red Angels, Vega Ventures and Shilling were the most active Business Angels Syndicate in the first half of 2019. Red Angels are no longer doing new investments and Core Angel has taken the place for new investments. (full list here).

In addition, the Spanish based Syndicate Faraday hired this year Pedro Ceia, previously at PME Investimentos, to lead the Portuguese operation and is expected to be active in the market.

Typically a syndicate will invest up to €300k in a startup, in the first ticket and can follow-on on the next round. Funding comes from several individual investors, which are putting €20k-€50k on the “fund”(which can mean that a single small investor can be investing €1k per startup or less). There are also angel groups, such as Faraday, which work on a deal by deal basis — each individual investor chooses which company to invest.

The majority of Portuguese syndicates leverage public money — IFD — to top-up their investments. This can come with some restrictions regarding the speed of wiring the money and also geographically where they can invest.

Here you can view a full list of Portuguese based Business Angels Syndicates

Individual Business Angel

Individuals Business Angels are individual investors investing their own money which can be also part of an existing Angel Syndicate but investing on their own (e.g., Miguel Santo Amaro, Diogo da Silveira, et.c), or that are not affiliated with any Syndicate (e.g. Pedro Almeida, Paulo Gaspar, Anthony Douglas, Humberto Pereira, etc.)

Typically individuals invest as low as €5k per deal and can invest up to 50–100k€. The main advantage of bringing such a person is to benefit from their unique expertise, experience and network.

Unfortunately, there is even less information on individual business angels. I have tried to put it together in a google sheet based on information available online and my knowledge. If there is anything missing or incorrect let me now.

See also

Sources

  1. Beta-i report: https://rethink.beta-i.pt/2019/06/26/download-the-venture-capital-in-portugal-report/

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