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Startup Portugal, Venture Capital and Business Angel activity report 2020 Q3

You can find the full report in the PDF at the end of this post. For more details check the Portugal Startup Scene and subscribe to the newsletter here to receive it conveniently in your e-mail, every month.

2020 Q3 vs. 2020 Q2

Transaction volume

In the third quarter of 2020, there were 41 rounds (+21% vs. Q2). Growth was mainly driven by more pre-seed rounds (+84% vs. Q2). The pre-seed accelerator from Indico and Google and the announcement of several rounds by Lisbon Ventures (which might have happened in previous quarters) contributed to 50% of the rounds in Q3, with +6 rounds each investor. The seed-stage shrank by -24% vs. Q2, mostly due to the contraction of LC Ventures investments (0 seed investments Q3 vs. 5 in Q2). Post-seed rounds have maintained stable – 4 in each quarter.

Number of early stage rounds Portugal q3 2020

Amount invested

During Q3, €153M were invested (67% vs. Q2), of which €144M in post-seed (2.2x vs. Q2), €6M in Seed (-77%), and €4M in pre-seed (+16%). Post-seed grew exclusively due to the Talkdesk growth round (€127M). Besides the already above-mentioned effects on the number of rounds, pre-seed and seed were negatively affected in terms of round size, as pre-seed and seed rounds had lower increases/higher reductions vs. volume (pre-seed +64% in volume vs. +14 in amount; seed -24% in volume vs. -77% in amount).

Top 10 largest rounds

Talkdesk was the largest round in 2020 YTD €127M. As such, in Q3 the largest top 10 rounds accounted for 97% of the total amount invested (vs. 91% Q2). In addition to Talkdesk, there were only 3 more rounds >=1M€ in Q3, which is much lower than the previous quarter.

Rounds size

In Q3, rounds size median (pre-seed -35% and seed -50%) and averages (pre-seed -52 and seed -64%) fell significantly versus Q2. This might be a signal of worst market conditions and contractions of valuations associated with COVID19.

Most invested themes

In addition to Marketplace/e-commerce and SaaS that are the 2 most invested themes and continue to receive investment during Q3, Health Care and IoT startups also had good momentum. Unlike in Q1 and Q2, there were fewer investments in AI and Mobile startups. I don’t think that happened anything structural to explain these changes.

Most active investors

During Q3, Business Angel investors were the most active investor group and invested in 44% of the rounds. Their participation increased, particularly on pre-seed rounds. Lisbon Ventures, Core Angels, Best horizon, Vega Ventures, Three51, Team Play Ventures, and Olisipo Way announced investments in 2 or more startups in the Q3.

The Portuguese state-own fund increased participation and, in Q3, 1/4 of the rounds were invested by Portugal Ventures. PV was also the most active investor in the Seed stage.

During Q3, LC Ventures, the most active investor YTD, didn’t announce any investment, reducing participation on both pre-seed and seed stage. International investors had the same behavior, reducing participation in both pre-seed and seed stages (COVID19 impact?).

Finally, the remaining investors had slightly lower participation in the overall Portuguese market. To highlight the increase in participation on pre-seed by Indico Capital Partners, due to the Google accelerator program. EDP Ventures announced several investments, but all, excluding 1, were in international startups.

Other highlights

During Q3, there were 3 new funds/financing lines

  1. Indico announced a €12M fund, to invest in Google and Indico new accelerator
  2. Portugal Ventures announced a call dedicated to the Tourism sectors
  3. IFD announced a €50M fund of funds to support Venture Capital funds with investments in the Ocean economy

Besides the new funds, José Neves, the founder of Farfetch, is donating 2/3 of his wealth to his newly launched foundation, aiming to support Portugal transforming into a Knowledge-based economy.


2020 Q2 Report

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