Prime Minister António Costa has opened Lisbon’s first Web Summit revealing that the State is ready to plough 200 million euros into start-ups and innovation to help create an “ecosystem” in Portugal that attracts investment.
Stressing the funding has been created because “many businesses in Portugal” find it difficult to get the support they need, the initiative is designed to work with international and national investors – and is aimed at the “most innovative sectors, from robotics to biotechnology”.
“Many of these businesses have fortunately found finance abroad”, Costa told one of the summit’s events on Monday. “But we realise that the best way of supporting this finance is through coinvestment”.
“Programme 200 M invest with the best” will thus make money available for “the right people to bring the right projects to life”, he said, stressing: “We want to do better, we want to be faster, we want to go further and we know we have much to learn”.
Web Summit is a global conference that brings together the world’s ‘tekkies’ and calls itself “the best technology event on the planet”.
This first time in Lisbon sees around 50,000 people due to take part from 165 countries, including 20,000 companies, 7,000 CEOs and an estimated 700 investors.
