Municipality of Barreiro and Startup Portugal sign pioneering partnership | Strengthening support and promotion of startups in the region

A collaboration protocol was signed on March 21st between the Municipality of Barreiro and Startup Portugal, where both parties commit to supporting and promoting the ecosystem of startups and scaleups in Portugal, facilitating the growth of emerging companies.

This is a pioneering partnership that will serve as a pilot project for the implementation of memoranda of understanding or similar protocols with other municipalities across the country.

Frederico Rosa, President of CMBBarreiro City Council, highlighted the importance of this understanding as we are linked to an ecosystem larger than ourselves, to other startups, entities and organizations that not only understand each other but also create bridges, synergies and connect paths. “What we signed here is a step, in this logic of growth where Barreiro, the municipal incubator and our entrepreneurs will only grow, if we manage to have a global vision with many connections and synergies”, he said.

For António Dias Martins, Executive Director of Startup Portugal, this signature is “proof that it is possible to create active public policies to promote and attract entrepreneurship from municipalities and regions, and it is not necessary to depend solely on the central executive power to do so . A CMBBarreiro City Council was one of the first to join this initiative and it is with great satisfaction that we are here”, he highlighted.

In the opinion of the Executive Director of Startup Portugal, “this denotes a long-term and strategic vision because startups in Portugal are not only valuable for the number they represent today, around four thousand companies, but for their special characteristics. These are companies that have grown, over the last three years, an average of 25% per year while Portuguese SMEs grow 9%. These are companies that pay employees 60% above the average of what the rest of the national business sector pays and they are companies that export 65% of what they produce compared to 14% for SMEs. Startups stand out and therefore represent a strong investment for the Portuguese economy and public policies”.

The new 2023 startups law that provides additional conditions for companies to be able to leverage, thanks to the application of funds from the PRRRecovery and Resilience Planvouchers for startups and vouchers for incubators that also promote entrepreneurship, among other matters, was praised by António Dias Martins who believes that “we have never had such good conditions in Portugal for entrepreneurship”.