Day 2 of the roadshow and our team is feeling increasingly energised by the amazing startups we’ve been meeting around the country. 6 cities are already behind us. 8 more to go!!
Today, we ended the day at Instituto Pedro Nunes (IPN), one of the oldest incubators in Portugal, launched in 1996, that since its inception has supported 225 companies. Companies like Feedzai, Critical Software, Wit Software or Crioestaminal are all spin-offs of the University of Coimbra that were incubated by IPN. Instituto Pedro Nunes has been the driving force of the Coimbra startup ecosystem, developing its own activities, but also supporting initiatives like Startup Weekend Coimbra, IneoStart, ArriscaC and Startup Pirates @ Coimbra. It’s important to remember some numbers: from the 225 companies supported, 65% were spin-offs of the University of Coimbra and they have a 75% survival rate. In 2013, the combined turnover of these companies was €60M and they employ over 1800 highly qualified workers.
By talking with a few entrepreneurs, it was clear the impact the university has in the ecosystem and how interconnected all players are. Coimbra showed lots of entrepreneurship energy and ambitious startups that want to succeed on a global scale.
We had the pleasure to meet 3 local highly resourceful startups that pitched to us and to some interested people in the room:
Collectors Bridge is a new passionate way for Collectors to manage their Collections. It is aimed at those seeking a powerful, yet intuitive, way to manage, showcase and trade their Collectables.
Playsketch enables everyone to create games by drawing them on paper. You can use their mobile app to capture your drawings and have them translated to playable games in minutes.
Space Layer Technologies is the company behind SOUL – Sensor Observation of Urban Life, a system that monitors the environment for Asthma and other respiratory diseases.
Sage is offering a 6 month trial subscription for Sage One + 50% discount forever (Standard version) for the best pitch in each city. And the winner in Coimbra is… Space Layer Technologies!
And the big winner of day one is EcoBook. They will have access to one month of free advertising on PortugalStartups.com. Congratulations.
Tomorrow, we will be in Covilhã, Castelo Branco and Évora. Say Hi if you are around!