Portugal Ventures starts the year investing €1.5 million in three startups

Portugal Ventures, the country’s venture capital funds manager, has announced this Tuesday that it will invest €1.5 million in three different startup projects, the first on the fund’s target for 2019.

The funds manager participated in Shiptimize and Advertio’s co-investment rounds, two startups presenting solutions for e-commerce, and in investment rounds with Logical Safety, an IoT platform focused on safety and health at the workplace.

The investment is a result of the first edition of “Call for MVP”, launched in 2018 by Portugal Ventures, and which is destined to investment in early stage development startups that already have their prototypes.

According to Portugal Ventures, there were over 240 projects applying to the Call for MVP, 97 of which were submitted officially to full analysis by the venture capital’s team.

“Call For MVP was the first step taken by Portugal Ventures to secure its place in the market, assuring it is fully operational. Returning to the market, with one edition only, has led us to know over 90 projects with potential, which is a result we are extremely satisfied with, as it shows the enthusiasm with which entrepreneurs are welcoming us. (…) We are working on launching new calls, and we are concerned with finding solutions for mobility issues, the circular economy, blue economy and energy efficiency”, Rita Marques, the CEO of PV explained.

As for the projects chosen, we start with Shiptimize, a all-in-one shipping portal, which offers a software for e-commerce, managing the relationship with all intervenients, and striving to get the best conditions through simplifying management processes in terms of return of goods and customer service. Shiptimize already has 400 clients spread out through Portugal, Spain and Holland, and the 500 thousand euros investment from Portugal Ventures will allow the startup to boost their internationalization and exporting processes, with the Brazilian market as the main goal. In the meantime, Shiptimize will change its headquarters from Holland to Portugal.

Advertio is transforming the digital marketing processes into automated ones, and it allows clients to distribute campaigns based on the information their website collects. How? Using an algorithm which maximizes return from the investment done in any digital marketing campaign — some of its clients are Startup Portugal and Probe.ly, and they have over 650 active accounts at the moment. Portugal Venture’s investment is the first closing of the company’s second investment round, and it was organized in partnership with Rising Ventures and Olissipo Way. It will allow the startup to invest in internationalization and to reinforce its presence in the national market.

As for Logical Safety, this startup has built an IoT solution for the health and safety sector, allowing companies to reduce their teams’ exposure to risks in certain locations where they are working. Logical Safety’s product allows the security department of these companies to aggregate, in one platform, workers profiles, equipment management, documents, safety inspections, work routines, etc. It compiles this information, and it gives, in real time, suggestions on which skills and competencies each of that company’s resources have for each specific situation occurring. With this investment round, the startup will be able to develop new features resorting to machine learning and AI, and it will also reinforce its sales team.