The Government launches 19 measures to accelerate entrepreneurship in Portugal



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The government has just launched this Monday the Startup Portugal program, which has 19 measures to promote entrepreneurship. Saturday, in an interview with Expresso, the Minister of Economy, Manuel Caldeira Cabral, had already advanced some of them –

– including 0% of the IRS for start-up actions, by funding different stages of growth for these young companies. Training and Incentive Program for the Recruitment and Retention of Highly Qualified Talent

This program, as part of the National Strategy for Entrepreneurship, is presented this morning at the Innovation Center and Entrepreneurship Lakes in Lisbon, in one is in the presence of the Prime Minister, António Costa, and the Minister of Economy.

On the one hand, it is considering new measures to boost sectors such as tourism, commerce and restaurants; on the other hand, it introduces changes into other programs that already exist, such as the Startup Voucher, the Valley Incubation or the Momentum program.

In the case of Startup Voucher, which is intended for the development of projects that are still in progress The opening of this program is still open Monday, with 400 vacancies for this program, which will include for the first time candidate projects from the Lisbon region. Each year, there are two notice openings for this initiative.

The Momentum Program (a support targeted at recent graduates and higher education finalists who have benefited from social work grants during the course and who are thinking of developing a business idea ) will see the number of projects supported increase "significantly", according to data published by the Ministry of Economy at the Lusa agency. It is estimated that there are now 50 vacancies per year.

There is also news regarding Vale Incubação, which addresses businesses less than a year old in the field of entrepreneurship, which will now accept "applications" and "bids". increase the maximum amount of support to € 7,500, with the exception of startups based in the Lisbon region (with a support of € 5,000). The next notice of applications will be open during this month of July.

Among the biggest news that the Startup Portugal program will launch is the creation of a tourism innovation center, in which will be born Digital Tourismo Academy, a training program for tourism companies for digital . There will also be a specialized incubator, which aims to be the nest of innovative solutions for companies in the tourism sector. This center exclusively dedicated to tourist startups "will have the mission to promote innovation in the tourism sector, supporting the development of new business ideas, the development and testing of projects and the training of enterprises in the field of innovation and the digital economy "According to the official source of the Ministry of Economy

Digital Tourismo Academy, a training program for tourism companies for digital, will be born within this center of innovation, while the incubator wants to nest innovative solutions for businesses in the tourism sector

More information, more funding

In the As part of this support program for technology entrepreneurs, the Startup Center, a digital mapping platform for national startups and incubators, will be created, bringing together centralized information. available support lines for this ecosystem.

This platform gives entrepreneurs and startups the exchange voucher, an access password that allows these companies to make contact with this network and develop financing relationships and new clients. as well as mentoring programs.

startuos who are in incubators so that those who want to invest can find projects based on geographical issues, the size of the company, the type of business, such as financial technology or biotechnology. It will be a way to give these companies the opportunity to find not only investors, but also mentoring or first customers, "explains to Expresso in an interview with Manuel Caldeira Cabral

There is also an endowment for training for entrepreneurs and start-ups, reimbursed at 90% via the COMPETE funds. The government intends to train at least 1,200 people.

And there are still other measures. As InovGov, which aims to encourage innovative solutions and the creation of startups in the public sector; "open kitchen laboratories", which allow testing of new products, services or concepts in the field of catering; and "hackathons" marathons to accelerate digital transformation in the trade and tourism sectors are other measures.

Inov Commerce also intends to launch competitions to present innovative projects that help stimulate the spirit of enterprise and innovation in the field of trade, and the challenge Energy, which supports projects in the energy sector, with a budget of 1 million euros (funding between 20 and 50 000 euros, non refundable).

Also featuring the Start Up DNA line with 10 million euros available for companies having four years or less of existence and with a minimum of 15% equity. The maximum amount of funding for this line is 50 thousand euros KEEP – Employee Engagement Program – for technology companies under six years old who can compete with other companies for recruitment and the retention of highly qualified personnel. "Through this initiative, startups will be able to pay their workers with shares of the company's capital, with the resulting gains." employee share ownership are exempt from the "IRS," according to the Ministry of Economy.

International co-investment funds; incubation with incubators and accelerators; capital + acceleration; and the technology development funding lines for tourism (support line for digitization and call for projects in the sector) are other measures.

The list of new initiatives also includes CALL MVP – Minimum Viable Products, to enable access to venture capital investment; the acquisition for Portugal of the Techstars network international acceleration program (Metro accelerator for hospitality powered by Techstars); the corporate space for startups and Tech Visa, talent attraction program for Portugal.

The National Strategy for Entrepreneurship – Startup Portugal was launched in 2016 as one of the government's priorities to foster economic competitiveness, creating jobs and attracting investment.

6000 million euros

According to the "Diário de Notícias", this program launched this Monday by the government has a budget of 300 million euros. According to the minister, the support "is hard to add", but considering "the lines of Capitalize credit, tax incentives and incentives in the framework of Portugal 2020, we are talking about values ​​that certainly represent more than 5000/6000 million euros of support actually allocated. "

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