EIT Digital Releases "2017 Portuguese Scaleup Report" With Innovation Partner BGI at Scaleup Porto

BRUSSELS, June 1, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

EIT Digital together with Portuguese-based accelerator, Building Global Innovators BGI, is launching the 2017 Portuguese Scaleup Report today. After scanning hundreds of candidates, the report depicts in detail the 25 most promising Portuguese Scaleups with less than 5 years of activity. The report also draws insights on the opportunities and threats of the Portuguese ecosystem and provides recommendations "for startups given by startups" as well as for national and European players on how to retain and maximize talents in a competitive market.

     (Logo: http://mma.prnewswire.com/media/483248/eit_Digital_Logo.jpg )

Key facts:

• The 25 top Portuguese emerging scaleups have collectively raised a total of $ 142 Million.
• Although the top scaleups benefit significantly from international funding, 32% of the 25 firms are exclusively funded from Portuguese sources (Business angels, VCs and BGI)
• Portugal has the greatest proportion of its funding from equity when compared to America and other European countries.
• ICT and Consumer & Web scaleups have the most capital funding.

The digital version of the "Portuguese Scaleup Report" is being launched in June 2017. What makes this report different from a best-players ranking is that BGI and EIT Digital will validate and crowd source the results of the initial findings throughout the Entrepreneurial and Innovation community, who will be invited to provide feedback. An online, dynamic version of the report will be updated on a daily basis. Nonetheless, for those who want to have deeper insights, a fully comprehensive version is available in PDF format.

BGI and EIT Digital will be presenting the report on June 1 at 17:00 at Scale Up Porto Entrepreneurship and Innovation Week at Palácio da Bolsa. The highlights will be commented and followed by a scaleup founder's panel, with B-Parts (Luís Vieira), Guest-U (Marcelino Moreno), Muzzley (Domingos Bruges), Unbabel (Edmund Ovington) and Xhockware (João Rodrigues).

About EIT Digital 

EIT Digital is a leading European open innovation organisation that brings together a partnership of over 130 top European corporations, SMEs, start-ups, universities and research institutes. EIT Digital invests in strategic areas to accelerate market uptake of research-based digital technologies and to bring entrepreneurial talent and leadership to Europe.

EIT Digital is a Knowledge and Innovation Community of the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT). EIT Digital headquarters are in Brussels with co-location centres in Berlin, Budapest, Eindhoven, Helsinki, London, Madrid, Paris, Stockholm, Trento and a hub in Silicon Valley.

About Building Global Innovators 

BGI IUL MIT Portugal is an American style, deep innovation accelerator part of the MIT Portugal program. BGI is based in Lisbon (Portugal), conducting some components of its acceleration program in Cambridge (USA). It is an NFP organisation founded in 2010 set up by one of the top management universities in Portugal, ISCTE-IUL. As a deep innovation accelerator, BGI focus on 4 verticals: Medical Devices & Health IT, Smart Cities & Industry 4.0 solutions, Enterprise IT & Smart Data and Water Economy. Since 2010, BGI has accelerated 120 ventures which have aggregately raised over €110 Mio, with a survival rate of 73% to date and creation of 727 high-tech jobs.

Portugal is part of ARISE Europe, EIT Digital's implementation of the  EIT Regional Innovation Scheme (RIS). ARISE Europe is designed to stimulate regional growth in EU countries where EIT Digital is not physically present with a node. Its objective is to connect local and regional innovation centres and their ecosystems to EIT Digital's innovation and education ecosystem.

Contact:
Edna Ayme-Yahil
edna.ayme@eitdigital.eu