About Us
“The Venture Builder” is an NGO which had its inception in 2005, pioneering the words Entrepreneurship & Innovation in Portugal back then, in fact the oldest accelerator in Portugal. Today we help startups, scaleups and SMEs as well as large corporates to grow the Open Innovation and Lean Startup way by organising events and startups competition, running innovation and softlanding programs at european level like the INTERREG MED 4helix project and promoting investment between Portugal and Brazil and other Latin-American countries.
Know MoreInvestment Sectors
We are looking for disruptive technologies such as the application of Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Virtual Reality, Blockchain, BigData in the following sectors:
INDUSTRY 4.0
DIGITAL TRANSITION
CLIMATE TRANSITION
CIRCULAR ECONOMY
BLUE ECONOMY
TOURISM
LIFE SCIENCES
BIOTECHNOLOGY
HEALTH
Investment Strategy
The Fund’s investments will be made in startups in the early-stage (pre-seed, seed) without sales, and in startups who already have some market presence (traction). Here the focus is on making sure there is an alignment between the long-term vision of the company and the investors. Our goal as investors is to multiply investment aggressively. This vision must be a combination of innovation, creation of competitive differentiation and the potential for accelerated growth.
Corporate Governance/Legal Structure
The Fund will be registered with the CMVM (Comissão de Mercados de Valores Imobiliários / Portuguese Securities Market Commission), the financial authority tasked with supervising and regulating the portuguese financial markets.
Board of Directors
The fund will be administered by a Board of Directors elected by the Investors in General Assembly. The Board of Directors will propose to the General Assembly the members of the Investment Committee.
Investment Committee
The Investment Committee will be composed of five individual people, with experience and technical competence in the area of analysis of investment opportunities in companies, of which one must be a member of the Board of Directors. The selection of the investments is the responsibility of the Investment Committee, which will present it to the Board of Directors for approval.
Advisory Board
An Advisory Board will be established to advise the Board of Directors in the implementation and consolidation of the Fund’s management policy. Will be composed of prominent figures from each market – country managers – invited by the Board of Directors to raise money from that market as well as identifying startups to the Fund´s pipeline. The Board of Directors will propose an incentive scheme to the Investors General Assembly.
Our Programs
Training
Knowledge is the basis for good decision making and you must make good decisions if you want to be successful in your enterprises.
Softlanding
GROWTH is an internationalization program for the insertion of Latin American startups in Europe through one of the most promising innovation ecosystems in the world: Portugal.
Corporate Acceleration
We have developed a Corporate program based on the most prominent, advanced and successful acceleration programs developed so far. Our goal is to provide startup ventures with faster growth and consequentially to provide corporations with innovations and higher return-on-investments.
AMBASSADORS
Ambassadors represent a group of key influencers in the target startup ecosystems who actively support Fund activities.
Brazil
Marino Thobias
Bachelor’s degree in Economic Sciences, is a Founder / CEO of M.A.Thobias Consulting, a company focused in Digital Transformation processes in S.Paulo. Having over 42 years of professional experience, working in large multinationals companies in Banks and Technology industries. Participates in mentoring startups and is enthusiastic about the 4th industrial revolution and the cognitive era, and for radical innovation. Believes that innovation is the result of the sum of the training of people with creativity.
Brazil
Ricardo Normand
Graduated in Veterinary, Law and an MBA holder, besides MIT executive courses, is the founding partner of V Coach Consultoria (Brazil and Portugal) and Normand Sociedade de Advocacia. As a former manager of the first Seed Capital fund in Brazil (Novarum) and advisor of several technology companies around the world, he has been working in several fundraising, M&As and as a strategic advisor for many tech companies. He is also an associate professor at Fundação Dom Cabral, mentor of Founder Institute (São Paulo and Lisbon), Judge of MIT Innovation Challenge (Latam and Europe). He holds strong background in Life Sciences, IT, Legal and Strategic Planning.
Colombia
Camilo Rodriguez
Industrial Engineer with a MSc in Information System, MBA studies. Entrepreneur with more than 10 years of experience supporting entrepreneurship projects and social impact projects in developing business plans and obtaining and managing financial resources.
Executive with a distinguished career in sales and manager field, developing all the experience mainly in IT, Telecommunications, Government, Finance, Health and Education industries, consolidating high-level operations with a high focus on sales and new products positioning for all Latin America market. He is currently a Co-Founder and the CEO of Paway Latam, a company specialized in business investment and development of financial vehicles.
Hong-Kong
Cyron Chan
Cyron is an entrepreneur, venture builder, and design thinking advocate based in Hong Kong. Currently, he is leading a start-up centre in a higher education institute, advising various start-ups in different sectors, founder of impact ventures, author about social innovation, vice-chairman of youth organization and actively mentoring early-stage startups. He is passionate about coaching founders and creating new businesses. Also, he is a speaker in global events, including Hong Kong, Beijing, Lisbon, etc. He graduated from The University of Hong Kong (Computer Science) & The Chinese University of Hong Kong (Social Service Management) and continued his study of impact investing in Singapore.
Mexico
Gustavo Castellano
Specialist in the Infrastructure Sector, Energy, Real Estate, Agriculture, Technology, Bank and Financial Services, as well as in the Public Sector; had worked for the Latin America Regions, North América, Europe, India, Australia an Pacific; also Speaks the English, French and Portuguese languages.
América Central
Besy Lopez
Bachelor of Marketing and specialized in digital marketing from ADEN Business School San Pedro Sula Honduras. With more than 15 years of experience in areas such as pharmaceuticals, banking, advertising and information technology. She is currently the founder of MegaCorp, a company dedicated to marketing and advertising.
Our Network
Our Association has been operating since 2005, with a large network of partners in Europe and Latin America, supporting the growth and innovation of entrepreneurship through many projects and activities:
STARTUPS / SME’S
PARTNERS
COUNTRIES
Our Team
Prof. Dr. Fernando Gaspar
President
Carlos Cortes
General Director
José Matos
European Union Consultant
Mariana Nogueira
Entrepreneurship, Acceleration
Contact us
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