Hello everyone, and welcome back,
I’ve been following the Scale Up Now initiative from Startup Portugal. Their ambition is clear and aligned with what our ecosystem needs: a bigger and more powerful presence in the USA. On day one, one of the topics on the table was Startups & Corporates — a partnership still undervalued, in my opinion. Some of the insights shared by Ana Simões (Brisa) and Pedro Santos (Sonae) led me to this week’s topic.
In every mature tech ecosystem, startups and corporates don’t just coexist, they need each other. And when they finally realise it, everyone wins. In Portugal, we’re getting better, but we’re still far from unlocking its full potential. Too often, corporates see startups as “interesting” instead of “strategic,” and startups see corporates as “slow” instead of “scalable.” Both are missing the point.
Startups are R&D engines. Corporates are distribution machines. Together, they compress time.
What Corporates Gain:
- Speed: Startups move fast because they must. Corporates move fast when they partner with them
- Talent proximity: the best founders don’t apply for jobs; they build companies. Corporates that collaborate early stay close to the next generation of problem‑solvers
- New revenue lines: not “innovation labs,” not “hackathons,” but real pilots that turn into real contracts
- Cultural oxygen: nothing shakes up internal teams like seeing a three‑person startup out‑execute a big organisation
What Startups Gain:
- Credibility: a corporate logo on your deck is a cheat code for trust
- Distribution: one corporate deal can equal large number of SME clients
- Data & domain expertise: Startups bring the agility; corporates bring the context
- A path to scale: not every startup needs VC. Some just need a corporate that believes in them
When these two worlds collaborate with intention, ecosystems accelerate.
You get: faster adoption of new technologies; more competitive industries; stronger local talent pipelines; culture where innovation is a behaviour
This is how countries move from “emerging ecosystem” to “innovation leader", through partnerships that actually ship.
This matters because Portugal is at an inflection point
- We have founders building relevant companies
- We have corporates hungry for transformation
What we lack is structured collaboration, repeatable, scalable, mutually beneficial. More Corporates with the vision already materialized by Brisa, Sonae, Fidelidade, Galp, Semapa, Delta, Microsoft, to name a few of the most active.
When one Startup x Corporate partnership works, it becomes a story, and stories spread faster than funding rounds; other Founders hear about it and think, “Maybe this is possible.”; other Corporates hear about it and think, “Maybe we should try this too.” Investors hear about it and think, “Maybe this ecosystem is maturing.”
And once the flywheel starts turning, everything accelerates: Startups stop building in isolation and start building with real market insight; Corporates stop fearing change and start shaping it; talent stops leaving and starts believing; and, policymakers stop reacting and start enabling.
This is how momentum forms
