Israeli Shield installs innovation hub in Lisbon
"Shield is a fast growing company. Portugal is one of our strategic initiatives for the coming years," said Ofir Shabtai, co-founder and CTO of the company.
Israeli tech company Shield is setting up an innovation hub in Lisbon to develop solutions for all projects and clients worldwide. The technology company, which closed a US$15 million Series A funding deal in January, is starting up with 12 employees. “By the end of the year they want to reach 20 people in the tech sector,” clarifies the official source of the company to ECO.
“Shield is a fast growing company. Portugal is one of our strategic initiatives for the coming years,” said Ofir Shabtai, co-founder and CTO of Shield. “We are eager to hire the best talent Europe has to offer, and we believe much of that talent currently resides in Portugal,” he says.
Shield closed a $15 million Series A round in January, led by Macquarie Capital and OurCrowd, with significant participation from Mindset Ventures, which will be applied to its expansion strategy and the development of its platform.
“We chose Portugal for the quality of the technological talent that exists. It is a country with a lot of potential, not only because of good universities and good professionals, but also because of its thriving technological and business ecosystem, which has already produced unicorns and startups worth billions of dollars, and the international investment it is attracting,” says Nuno Hortênsio, Shield’s country manager, quoted in a statement.
Lisbon will be the innovation hub for the company that operates in the financial compliance sector, such as surveillance, market abuse, trade reconstruction, record-keeping, 360 investigations, among others.
Plans for Portugal
In the first phase, the technology company intends to invest in development teams, but in the future it will also include professionals in the areas of solution architecture and cloud. It is looking for “specialised programmers and software managers with experience in Java, Angular, JavaScript, as well as other highly specialised IT professionals who can develop new functionalities” for the technology’s AI platform.
“Right now there are 12, but by the end of the year they want to have 20 employees in the tech sector,” the tech company’s official source tells ECO.
“We have a very attractive proposal. We work with cutting-edge technology in terms of innovation, offer extremely interesting professional growth opportunities and challenging projects around the world. The company has a very strong culture in Israel that will be brought to Portugal, based on principles of work-life balance and professional progression of great value and very fair,” guarantees Nuno Hortênsio, quoted in a press release.
Shield will also “establish protocols with Portuguese universities to offer professional and training opportunities to young people.”
