Today, the partnership between AED Cluster Portugal and Portugal Ventures was made official, through the signing of an MoU (Memorandum of Understanding) between the two parties.
Portugal Ventures is a Venture Capital Company, which invests in startups that work in the areas of digital, engineering & manufacturing, life sciences and tourism. Created in 2012, Portugal Ventures resulted from the merger of three of the most representative Venture Capital Companies in Portugal (AICEP Capital, InovCapital and Turismo Capital), thus assuming a decisive role in the financing and growth of the national entrepreneurship ecosystem.
By officializing this collaboration, AED joins a network of more than 70 national partners – the Ignition Partners Network. This is an essential network for the selection of projects that can receive investment, as well as for the organization of a multiplicity of events essential to the development and dynamization of the entrepreneurial ecosystem in Portugal.
The main goal of this partnership is to facilitate funding access to the Cluster members and all companies of the ASD sectors. In the MoU, you can read:
“This MoU aims to promote, through the Programs developed by Portugal Ventures, the access of projects in seed and early stage phases to venture capital investment, streamlining and systematizing the processes of deal flow, monitoring and exit.”
In this collaboration, AED will have access to a financing instrument dedicated to clusters, integrated in the Collective Efficiency Strategies, which is intended to:
- Companies in expansion phase, with less than 10 years of activity, which are promoting Cluster validates projects of a technologic nature;
- Business spin-off operations from companies that develop innovative products and services alligned with the Cluster’s strategies and that has as main goal it’s internationalisation.
Facilitating communication between the industry and financing entities will be essential in this collaboration, so that is possible, on the one hand, to adjust the investments available to the real innovation needs of companies and, on the other hand, to guide them towards a better qualification and preparation of their business projects.
For AED, whose mission also involves bringing its members closer to the existing financing mechanisms, this is an important step that will not only help to develop Cluster companies, but will also be a key driver in the innovation and entrepreneurship capacities of national Aeronautics, Space and Defense industries.