In the beginning of the year, we introduced you to 10 promising Portugal-based startups to watch in 2021. Today, we’re zooming in and exploring the country’s capital, Lisbon, which recently also made it into our annual ranking of Europe’s biggest startup hubs.
Aside from year-round good weather, cultural diversity, and amazing food, Lisbon is also home to the annual Web Summit and to an exciting startup ecosystem.
For this post, we’ve scouted promising early-stage startups based in Lisbon founded between 2018 and 2021. As signals for early success, we’ve been looking at factors like team size, funding, growth rate, innovation, market size. With this in mind, here are 10 exceptionally promising Lisbon-based startups to follow in 2021 and beyond.
MyLADS was born in 2020 and develops engaging Augmented Reality content that fans can access through its collectible items, the LADS. The LADS are high-quality replicas of football equipment allowing fans to experience AR content like photos and videos with players, 360º stadium tours, and infographics about players’ performances. Since its founding, the startup has raised over €7.6 million to empower sports teams and fans to engage in a different, innovative way. On the other hand, sports teams are gathering important insights about their fans, allowing them to better engage with them.
Vawlt is on a mission to support businesses as they transition to the cloud world. Founded in 2018, the startup has raised €1.1 million to enable companies to simplify data storage in multiple clouds in an economically and secure way. All this while ensuring control and visibility over the data and over who can access it. Vawlt’s Dynamic Storage Platform allows customers to adapt the data storage configurations to their needs regardless of their use-cases, from the storage of collaboration files to their archival, backup, and more.
YData is a development platform that helps data science teams accelerate their AI development. Founded in 2019, the young company has raised over €500K to enable customers to build the best dataset for their AI projects. YData’s Platform offers a set of tools that helps teams to discover and unlock data sources, experimentation and fast prototyping with data, and productization of models. YData’s Synthesizer leverages state-of-the-art deep learning techniques to learn the statistical information from the real data and mimics it on a new dataset, without transforming the original data, nor copying the real records.
Relive is a SaaS solution for real estate brokerage. Founded in 2020, the proptech startup has raised €150K to provide an integrated offer “one-stop-shop” solution. Their software offers brokerage services for buying, selling, renting, but also design and architecture projects, renovation and maintenance, and credit consulting. The Relive team aims to empower realtors to work more productively and enable them to generate more revenue while guaranteeing a smoother experience to customers.
Quantum Leap was founded in 2018 and bootstrapped so far The startups is focused on innovation at the intersection of the most current disruptive technologies: VR/AR, Biometrics, Ai, DLTs, and IoT. They’re developing technologies for microelectronics, data science, and edge AI, nano-materials, e-wallets, and payments. More specifically, they’re working on IoT wireless technology and protocol, distributed ledger technology, AV watermarking, computer vision, and even new solutions for the packaging industry. Quantum Leap also provides services such as R&D, OEM and ODM manufacturing, and audio and video production.
Doppio is a conversational game studio, aiming to create the next big step in entertainment: voice-driven games and narratives. The gaming startup was born in 2018 and has raised €1 million to develop new AI-based games that users can play using only their voice. Their vision is that voice technology and Natural Language Processing enables developers to create radically new games. Doppio has partnered up with big names like Google and Amazon Alexa, as they’re working on a new game that will bring a voice-controlled PAC-MAN experience to Alexa devices.
NEVARO was founded in 2020 and provides a series of digital solutions for mental health, wellbeing, and performance-based on physiological biomarkers and gamification. Their solutions aim to complement the psychotherapeutic process through serious gaming and physiological computing. NEVARO also develops solutions for VR & AR exposure therapy, immersive mindfulness, and more. The health startup also aims to optimise healthcare systems by tracking key metrics of the performance of medical teams, treatment outcomes, and patient experience.
ScorePlay was founded last year and is an AI-powered media asset management platform built for football clubs. They leverage the power of computer vision to automatically review and tag raw content. These photo and video assets are then stored in a central hub on the cloud so that users can locate them easily through a search engine. Clubs can also give elected stakeholders like players, sponsors, media, and fans secured access to a dedicated library of curated content. With AI, the platform automatically tags players and sponsors so any user can find what they need in seconds.
LUGGit is a platform that aims to redefine the way luggage is transported in a personalised way. Since its founding in 2019, the young company has raised about €400K to connect travelers with independent drivers that collect and deliver luggage at the place and time of the customers’ choice. Through LUGGit’s website or mobile app, travelers can book the service and track their luggage in real-time during the day. LUGGit also allows accommodation businesses to offer the service to their guests in a revenue share model, with no setup fees.
Bloq.it is a smart locker software solution. Founded in 2019, the startup has raised €200K to develop a network of urban smart lockers, a solution for the future, tech-enabled smart cities. Bloq.it lockers have a wide variety of use cases: Parcel delivery, item storage, trade and exchange of items, office lockers, among others. Businesses such as co-working spaces or hostels to use Bloq.it’s API to integrate the software solution in their own IT systems and get parcels delivered through integration with multiple logistic carriers.
By the way: If you’re a corporate or investor looking for exciting startups in a specific market for a potential investment or acquisition, check out our Startup Sourcing Service!