Lisbon-based startups worth €2.1 billion in 2022
A preliminary study by Dealroom.co also shows that Lisbon has attracted record investment this year, with VC funds injecting €122 million into startups located in the Portuguese capital.
€2.1 billion is how much Lisbon-based startups are worth in 2022, a value three times higher than five years ago, according to a preliminary study by Dealroom.co on the startup ecosystem in the city, released at the opening of the 11th week of Lisbon Entrepreneurship, which kicked off this Monday. Lisbon alone concentrates 49% of the value of the startup ecosystem in the country.
The study also shows that the capital has attracted record investment this year, with VC funds injecting €122 million into startups located in Lisbon, 3.6 times more than in 2018 (€34 million), of which 102 million were raised by local investors.
“National investors are prepared to support their ecosystems and foreign investors are increasingly looking at the city and getting involved as well,” reveals Christiana Manzocco, director of government marketing at Dealroom.co, on these preliminary figures of the study, whose final results should be known in November, during Web Summit.
The investments are applied mostly in Pre-seed and Seed investment rounds (94%). Only 6% of investments are focused on Series A funding rounds.
Revealing an ecosystem that has seen many startups that reached unicorn status are leaving the country: startups founded in Lisbon are worth €21.4 billion, but only 10% of that are based in Portugal.
As for the industries that have received the most investment since 2017, the podium is made up of the Gaming (€85 million), Marketing (€63 million) and Fintech (€59 million) sectors.
Margarida Figueiredo, CML’s municipal director of economy and innovation, outlined a portrait of the city that, with 2.9 million residents, generates a GDP of €71,432 million and that, in the last year, saw the birth of 6,063 companies (256 more than in 2020) and the metropolitan area 15,165 (651 more than last year). “Over 40% of businesses in the city are less than five years old,” she highlighted.
With the increase seen in the number of companies present in the Portuguese capital, more foreign residents have also come to the city. In 2020, 330,701 new residents from all over the world decided to move to Lisbon, and 22,400 international students. “We have a very interesting talent pool, very reputable internationally, but we have to work harder,” she said.
