Editor's Note

Hello and welcome to the updated Startupt.co. This is Sergei Yakupov, founder and editor of the newsletter. As you see, we've changed a lot here. First, we regroup the content and now we focused not on the quantity of news, but on the quality.

• Data of the Week. Here we have information about main indexes for the last 7 days and short information about startups that raszed money this week.
• Features. This is our exclusive. We started as a news aggregator, but eventually we found out ourselves with some interesting ideas and what is more important — with a lot of interesting people that we eager to talk to about startup ecosystem in Portugal.
• News of the week. This is as simple as it is written: news, events, opportunities.
• Unintentionally Smart. As we crawl a lot of information, sometimes we find useful, interesting, provocative content about startups, vc, technologies that we thought would be great to share with you. So — here it is: video, podcasts, longreads, short thoughts.

Would be glad to hear back from you (just reply on this email!). And also would appreciate if you tell about your friends and colleagues about Startupt.co. We'll do our best to meet the expectations!

Okay, enough from me. Hope you'll enjoy reading.

P.S: We are going to Product Hunt. Here is the link.

Data of the Week

📊 Main indexes (the last 7 days)

Ticker	Last Close	Diff	Direction
NASDAQ	17805.16015625	-0.61%
S&P 500	5477.89990234375	-0.40%
DOW JONES	39127.80078125	0.83%
PSI	6515.97021484375	-0.83%

The main indexes showed mixed performance over the past week. The NASDAQ closed at 17805.16, down 0.61%, and the S&P 500 fell 0.40% to 5477.90. The DOW JONES, however, saw a positive change, rising 0.83% to close at 39127.80. In Portugal, the PSI index experienced a 0.83% decline, closing at 6515.97.

Portugal stocks were lower after Tuesday's close due to losses in the Financials, Basic Materials, and Industrials sectors, with the PSI dropping 0.83% total this week. The top performers in the session were Galp Energia, up 0.86% to 19.25, EDP Energias de Portugal, which added 0.61% to 3.64, and Corticeira Amorim, rising 0.33% to 9.21. The worst performers included Mota Engil SGPS, which fell 2.50% to 3.58, CTT Correios de Portugal, down 1.63% to 4.23, and Jeronimo Martins SGPS, which declined 1.49% to 19.15. Overall, falling stocks outnumbered advancing ones on the Lisbon Stock Exchange by 15 to 10, with 5 ending unchanged.

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💰 Raised

• Pulsely → Industry: SaaS. How Much: €1.25m. The Lead: Lince Capital
  (Source: ECO 🇵🇹)

Features

You Know What?

Textile and Clothing Market in Portugal: Why Not to Try

Image credits: Ksenia Chernaya / Pexels

Dutch news media Het Financieele Dagblad recently published a big review of Portuguese textile market — "Made in Portugal: The Rise of a Textile Country" (🇳🇱). And we thought — why not to refocus this article and to delve into the textile and clothing market in Portugal but as a potential niche for startups. This exploration revealed a pretty good opportunity, characterized by continuous growth, robust export capabilities, and a reputation for quality and sustainability.

Read full review on our website.

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Person of the week

Cintia Mano: Portugal needs to become competitive in the incentives to early stage investors

Image credits: Cintia Mano

Cintia Mano, CEO at COREangels shares her journey from corporate executive to angel investor. Driven by a passion for innovation, she transitioned from co-founding a startup to mentoring and investing in early-stage companies. In this interview, Mano discusses the challenges and opportunities in the Portuguese market, her investment criteria, and her vision for the future of venture capital.

Read more on our website

Author: Sergei Yakupov

Week As It Is

🇵🇹 Top ecosystem news

🙋 Startups and scaleups in Porto will benefit (🇵🇹) from exemptions and reductions in municipal taxes following a memorandum of understanding between the city council and Startup Portugal, which has just opened a five-person office in the North to support the region's entrepreneurial ecosystem.

🙋 Jsonify has been crowned the winner of the Startup Lisboa's Spring Batch demo day, marking the conclusion of the program that guides startups through the incubation experience. The event, which took place yesterday, featured pitches from various startups showcasing their latest innovations to an audience of founders, mentors, investors, and partners. We have an exclusive interview with the founder of Jsonify, Paul Hunkin, who shares insights into their journey and future plans as they prepare to leverage the community's support.

🙋 JobsCopilot.ai has launched publicly, transforming the job search process by automatically finding top job opportunities. After a successful private launch with 252 active customers, the platform has significantly improved based on early feedback. It scrapes job postings from over 400,000 company career pages, offering a vast and unique database not found on traditional job boards. With advanced categorization and tailored job matches, users are already securing interviews for roles they might have missed otherwise. The current early bird pricing and refund policy will change next month.

🙋 sheerME, the Portuguese platform for booking wellness, beauty, and fitness services, has launched (🇵🇹) sheerME PRO, a free platform for professionals in the industry. Celebrating its 3rd anniversary, sheerME has facilitated over 180,000 services across Portugal, Brazil, and Spain, formed over 4,000 partnerships, and tripled its growth in bookings and sales this year. Founders Miguel Alves Ribeiro, Karly Alves Ribeiro, and Shakil Satar created sheerME to address the challenges of finding and booking these services conveniently, especially post-pandemic.

🙋 After a significant drop in capital raised by Portuguese entrepreneurs last year, 2024 shows promising signs of recovery. According to Startup Portugal, investments in startups have already surpassed the amounts invested in 2023. Lurdes Gramaxo, president of the Portuguese Association of Investors in Early Stage, notes (🇵🇹) that the early stage investment market has ample liquidity and promising projects are securing funding. A recent barometer from the association revealed investor optimism about new investments in the first half of 2024, indicating a positive outlook for startups and scaleups seeking capital this year.

If you have some news to share — tell us about it and you'll be there.

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🌍 What else? In brief

• Accel and Dealroom.co's analysis reveals that 25% of GenAI startups are founded by alumni from tech giants like Google, DeepMind, Meta, Amazon, Microsoft, and Apple, with London emerging as the leading city, hosting 27% of these startups.
  Source: Sifted
  
  
• Spanish Kfund has raised €70M for its sixth fund, aiming to support "high-impact projects" in southern Europe, with investments ranging from €100,000 to €10M across AI, data analytics, edge computing, 5G connectivity, blockchain, and cloud services.
  Source: Tech.eu
  
  
• GrowthCap announces The Top 25 Healthcare Investors of 2024, celebrating exceptional nominees recognized for their expertise and success in healthcare investments, spanning software, services, medical technologies, biotechnology, and the connected patient experience.
  Source: GrowthCap

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🚀 Where to Apply

◉ Meta, in collaboration with Hugging Face and Scaleway, is launching a new AI accelerator for European startups. Based at STATION F in Paris, this program aims to accelerate innovation, drive business growth, and strengthen the European tech ecosystem. Selected startups will receive technical mentoring from Meta FAIR research teams, access to Hugging Face's platform and tools, and Scaleway's computing power. Applications are open until August 16th.

◉ The Altice International Innovation Award is now accepting applications until September 22nd for its "Startup" category, targeting innovative projects with technological and transformative potential. This year's 8th edition also features the "INCLUI" category by Altice Foundation, emphasizing digital inclusion and communication accessibility. With a prize pool of 100,000 euros and incubation opportunities at Unicorn Factory Lisboa or Startup Braga, this initiative supports both national and international technological talent. (Apply here).

◉ ICP HUB Portugal's web3 accelerator program is your opportunity to transform your innovative ideas into market-ready projects. This program offers expert guidance at every development stage, making it perfect for both newcomers and those looking to scale their web3 ventures. Participants will dive into detailed learning modules, secure grants from $3,000 to $5,000, and connect with a vibrant community. With top-tier mentorship, access to ICP's leading tech, and a two-phase structure covering ideation to market entry, this is your chance to level up your web3 project. Applications are open now.

◉ Join the EIT Food course on soil and sustainable agriculture in Portugal, hosted by Food4Sustainability CoLAB, @BGI, and Universidad de Sevilla. Open to undergraduates, MSc/PhD students, researchers, professionals, and food system innovators, the course runs online from July 1st to 12th and on-site in Penha Garcia from July 29th to August 1st. Standout participants from the online week may be invited to the on-site Eco-week, featuring engaging activities, field trips, and networking opportunities. (Apply here till June 30).

◉ IHSensortech, in collaboration with the Instituto Hidrográfico of the Portuguese Navy, launches the Open Innovation for Blue Technology initiative. Spearheaded by Portugal Blue Digital Hub, this program aims to drive maritime innovation across five key areas, addressing real-world challenges through pilot projects and collaborations. Participants will work with a renowned institution in the Portuguese Blue Ecosystem, contributing to the future of the sector. More info — here.

◉ If you are young mind this. The Católica Lisbon School of Business and Economics is hosting a Junior Executive Program from July 9th to 11th, tailored for students aged 16 to 18 eager to learn essential management skills. This three-day event covers key management topics and offers an inside look at life in a top business school. Participants can attend either on-campus or online. Learn more and register here.

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🎪 Where to Go Next Week

Unintentionally Smart

📺 📚 🎧 Watch, Read, Listen

📺 Over ten years ago, Paul Graham published the groundbreaking essay "Do Things That Don't Scale," offering controversial yet transformative advice for early startups. Join YC Partners as they delve into the essay's profound influence on Silicon Valley and highlight prime examples of YC founders who embraced this unconventional mantra. Don't miss this insightful discussion on the strategies that can make or break a startup's journey. Read Paul Graham's essay here and watch video on Youtube.

📚 Discover the intriguing world of emotion prompting in AI with our deep dive into how using ALL CAPS and emotional cues can enhance chatbot responses. Learn how phrases like "I’LL LOSE MY JOB IF..." can extend blog posts by 13%, and explore the science behind these techniques through a case study with Golden Gate Claude, a chatbot challenged to discuss topics beyond bridges. This exploration not only sheds light on effective AI interaction strategies but also addresses the ethical and practical considerations of our evolving relationship with automated systems. Read more at Every.

🎧 AI products are transforming business landscapes, particularly for Grammarly. The $13 billion company's CEO, Rahul Roy-Chowdhury, has stepped in during a period of significant change. In this podcast, host Jeff Berman discusses with Rahul how his Google experience prepared him for this role, his focus on building customer trust, and his vision for AI's impact on the future of work. Listen new episode of Master of Scale on Spotify.

Author:

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🛠️ Useful Tools For Startups

• ChatPRD - Claire Vo made service that writes product requirements documents as a side hustle.
• Spiral - News media called Every developed a AI-service to help us improve writing skills — automate 80% of repeat writing, thinking, and creative tasks.
• Make Real - This tool can turn sketches into html+css. For example, you need beautiful sidebar for your website — just draw it, plug in with your OpenAI or Anthropic API Keys and get the html+css.
• Score My Deck - They say, that making pitch decks is a challenging task. So this tool will help to improve your pitch decks.
• Payman AI - Well... We came to this finally. If AI can't do some job it is ready to pay you to help him. Natural Intelligent is going to steal AI jobs!

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🤔 Think About It

Thoughts of the week to think about. Some of them will inspire you, some — will piss you off.

"Cafes are for having a small coffee and 4 cigarettes in the mid afternoon not working on your bullshit startup that sells underpants for dogs."

"We don’t really patent things. Patents are for the weak.. The problem is patents are generally used as a blocking technique. They’re like using landmines in warfare. They don’t actually help advance things. They just stop others from following you. And most patents are BS."

"One of my favorite things about designing software is designing the defaults. The defaults define the experience for everyone out of the box. And, therefore, for most people in perpetuity. Convention over configuration rules the day. To me, everything it could possibly do is less interesting than what it does right now, factory fresh."