San Francisco, Oct. 2, 2026 (Lusa) - The Portuguese delegation, which is taking part in the official programme of San Francisco Tech Week for the first time between 5 and 7 October, aims to seek opportunities for expansion into the United States and to promote Portugal's innovation ecosystem.
The delegation includes the founders of ten Portuguese start-ups, representatives from the organising bodies and seven MPs, Filipa Pinto de Carvalho, president of RedBridge Lisbon, which is leading the initiative, told Lusa.
«It is a source of pride that we have managed, for the first time, to have Portugal featured on the official agenda,» she said, emphasising that the initiative is co-organised with Startup Portugal and Unicorn Factory.
The idea arose following several events promoting Portugal and its innovation ecosystem in San Francisco, which were well received.
«We wanted to be more ambitious and use this opportunity to organise an event for an audience interested in investing in Portugal, so that we could bring Portuguese founders and Portuguese start-ups and help them take their first steps towards expanding into the Californian and US markets,» she explained.
The Portuguese delegation will include 17 founders from the start-ups CodePlatform, Enline, ExpertGrain, FRANK, Lampsy Health, noticed, Octo Health, Savearth, The C-MORE Company and VeriCasa.
They were selected from 45 applications from across the country and prepared through two days of intensive workshops at Unicorn Factory, with experts from various fields. Among them were speakers who explained how to raise funding and the legal implications of entering the US market, including lawyers from the Silicon Valley-based firm Cooley.
«This delegation brings together start-ups at different stages of development, ranging from a company founded this year, with a team of two people and no external capital, to a company founded in 2019, with 54 employees and which has already raised €5.65 million,» said Pinto de Carvalho.
There are companies in the fields of healthcare, energy, sustainability, property and others, and several utilise artificial intelligence.
«In terms of maturity, the delegation includes four start-ups in the «pre-seed» phase, three in the «seed» phase, two «bootstrapped» companies funded by their own revenue, and one company preparing for a Series A funding round.» Some have already registered in the US and others have American «business angels».
«We hope that, in these cases too, through the event and these initiatives, we can raise the profile of these projects and expand their network of contacts so that they can prepare for the next funding rounds,» said the organiser. «Several are preparing funding rounds, whilst others are also viewing this as a 'go-to-market' opportunity – that is, to find their first customers and first business partners in the market.» The organisers want to help founders meet with investors and key contacts for each project and will be holding networking events to open doors for the start-ups.
«Above all, we want to promote the ecosystem and show that it is maturing, that it has a great deal of talent, that it has talented teams and that it also has founders who already have experience,» added Pinto de Carvalho.
The programme includes three major events at Shack15, a venue on the top floor of San Francisco's historic Ferry Building. The opening session will feature experts speaking to the start-ups about scaling up from Europe to the US; there will be a reception hosted by the Portuguese Consul-General in San Francisco, Filipe Ramalheira; and the main event, in which the start-ups will compete with three-minute pitches before an audience of 120 investors.
In addition to the main organisers, the initiative also has the support of Pedro Coutinho, founder of the Transatlantic Highway Ventures fund, which invests in Portuguese start-ups.
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Lusa
