Portuguese startups raise 60 million dollars’ worth of funding in the US
José Manuel Mendonça, Chairman of INESC TEC and Scientific Director of the UTEN Portugal Program, travelled to the University of Texas at Austin, USA, with a group of startup companies as part of the Global Startup Program. The goal is to support Portuguese startups through partnerships and American capital. Some of the projects have already signed contracts and obtained funding worth a total of 60 million dollars.
UTEN Portugal, which is one of the FCT’s business partnership programs, has recently changed its focus from training technology transfer officers to supporting the internationalisation of startups, namely by promoting their presence in the United States. In that sense, UTEN Portugal, in collaboration with the University of Texas, more specifically the IC² Institute, has implemented the Global Startup Program, where the goal is to support startups which are mature and developed enough to internationalise their products and services through partnerships, including with American capital.
After a pre-selection of companies in Portugal, this mission took a set of startups to Austin, capital of Texas, for networking, visits and to promote businesses with North-American companies, incubators and venture capitalists. The delegation, which included about 40 people, was the largest delegation ever to visit Texas with this purpose.
According to José Manuel Mendonça, scientific director of UTEN Portugal, “for me it was very interesting to understand the impact of what has been done in such little time, as the first companies have already obtained sales contracts and to receive American capital worth a total of 60 million dollars. This is proof of the economic impact of Portuguese startups”, states José Manuel Mendonça.
Chairman of INESC TEC is new Fellow of IC² Institute
José Manuel Mendonça has been recently nominated Fellow of the IC² Institute at University of Texas at Austin, in the United States. This nomination follows a seven-year collaboration with that Texan university.
With this nomination, the Chairman of the Board of INESC TEC becomes part of the IC²’s Strategic Council working on international partnerships, whose goal is to transfer technology and promote the economic valorisation of technology at University of Texas at Austin.
Currently, IC² has about 200 Fellows of almost 20 different nationalities.
The INESC TEC researcher mentioned in this article is associated with the following partner institutions: UP-FEUP.
Credits 1st photo: IC²
