The 351 Portuguese Startup Community Year in Review

Without any doubt 2022 was another great year for the Portuguese Ecosystem!

Portugal has moved from 19th position to 17th position on the European Innovation Scoreboard (among the 27 countries considered), Web Summit has hosted its largest edition ever, attracting 71k people, Lisbon Startups have sets a new record in VC, having roughly raised €380 million in funding and there is a? new startup law is being cooked to foster the local ecosystem.

2022 was also the first year without pandemics and with the new cities / government body in place, being a fertile ground to prepare for 2023, in which a lot of projects and incentives will be finally going live.

The 351 Community is a grassroots growing community of founders, mentors, investors and partners formed with the goal to make Portugal the most dynamic ecosystem in the world and here is a review of some of our achievements in 2022!

351 BECAME A BRAND

In Spring 2022 we launched our new branding, designed by community members Peter Allen and Sonia Reis . The logo is inspired by the tilde symbol of the Portuguese language and simbolizes connection, support, networks and togetherness. It also simbolizes waves of the sea, recalling the time of the Portuguese Discoveries.

For the brand colours, Peter wrote some code to sample the backgrounds from everyone’s profile photos. From this data, the algorithm generated the colour values that best represented the members of the community. So our brand colours were literally created by everyone in the community!

Our branding represents our values of diversity, support, innovation, harmony and working together – the values of the startup community and the ecosystem in Portugal.

FROM COMMUNITY TO ASSOCIATION

After 3 years of existence, 351 has become the largest and the most active Startup Community in Portugal, gathering +1200 members, alongside startups, corporates, investors and accelerator managers, with at least 2 weekly activities happening in Portugal.

351 has grown exponentially and the community has reached a critical maturity stage where professionalization is required in order to keep helping startups to reach their next level of growth and to make the Portuguese ecosystem thrive internationally, therefore the community now is also the first startup association in Portugal created by startup founders to startup founders.

SUPPORTING + 10 PROJECTS NATIONALLY?

In 351, the Portuguese community came together and people could share their experiences and help each other. As 351 evolved, its community members started to get work together to give back to the ecosystem.?

Nowadays, 351 supports +50 volunteers, across 10 national initiatives that were either started by the community or were existing initiatives of which 351 has become a key supporter: We will highlight some of the projects 351 has started or supported its creation.

PORTUGAL TECH WEEK 2022 (FIRST EDITION)

With the goal of increasing the density of events in other Portuguese cities other than Lisbon, showcase Portuguese players and leverage the impact that all big conferences bring to the country, 351 created Portugal Tech Week, the largest decentralized innovation festival in Portugal, providing a 10 days schedule full of events.

The results couldn’t be better! Despite all great numbers, 351 also officially supported events with the Brazilian, Estonian and Lisboa Delegations. We are very excited about the 2023 edition, which will be even larger! If you are interested in organizing events in our city or partnering with us, get in touch with 351 here.

PARTNERSHIPS WITH OFFICIAL DELEGATIONS & LOCAL CITIES

During Portugal Tech Week, 351 Association has partnered with some governments / counties such as the Brazilian & Estonian or even with Made of Lisboa / Lisbon City Council to help these locations to either connect their businesses with international players or to showcase their own regions to startups / investors / digital nomads.?

As an example, 351 has joined the event “Meet the Ecosystem” organized by Made of Lisboa, to introduce the ecosystem to entrepreneurs and founders looking to move their businesses to Lisbon or create startups here. We are looking forward to supporting more regions on their challenges and If you are interested in partnering with us, get in touch with 351 here.

STARTUP GRIND LISBON & PORTO

Startup Grind is the largest community of entrepreneurs worldwide, with +4MM startups across 600 cities. 351 restarted the Lisbon chapter, pulling a call for volunteers out there. Since that, we got +60 applications for volunteering, and nowadays the current team is composed of 14 volunteers, who have managed to organize 8 events with +900 sign ups. (being one of them one of the largest parties at the Web Summit).

351 now is also taking the initiative to Porto, and many other cities. If you are interested in organizing events in our city or partnering with us, get in touch with 351 here.

You can sign up for the Startup Grind's last edition of the year here.

BEER IN THE BLOQ

Organized by Bloq.it in partnership with Sitio.co and 351, Beer in the Bloq is an event to connect the ecosystem by bringing together companies and tech startups. Each event has the presence of different local startups along with their teams, so they can connect with other professionals and entrepreneurs.

More than having the opportunity to expose their brand and future plans, companies can share their differentiating factors to the community at the event and 5 events were held up to now.? You can sign up for the last edition of the year here

COWORKING THURSDAYS

Coworking Thursdays is an initiative to showcase local spots by bringing tech related people (founders, digital nomads, developers) to cowork from these spots. In 2022, Coworking Thursdays team managed to organize 33 events (Lisboa and Porto) in 24 different venues (among coworks, companies and innovation hubs), having? 902 people registered for its events.?

WHAT WILL 2023 WILL LOOK LIKE?

2023 will be a key year for 351 as it will be the first year the community will also operate as a Startup Association and it will be offered different tiers of membership (not to worry, one of them it will be free), so startups in different stages will be able to benefit from different programs.?

With the vision of “transforming the Portuguese Ecosystem into the most dynamic worldwide”, 351 Association hopes to? also expand all the current initiatives to other cities, making sure most of the Portuguese Cities will have at least one initiative happening.

351 will also work based on 4 pillars, each having their own projects: “Culture”, “Investment”, “Market” and “Legislation”, which we will share more information with you soon about!

THANKS TO VOLUNTEERS WHO CONTRIBUTED

351 also wants to say a big thank you for the volunteers who contribute with the ecosystem, to make all these projects possible:

Aleksandra Lekszycka , Alex Bourlier , Anastasiia Zavalniuk , Apo Zadeh , ? Bráulio P. , Carlos Resende , Cíntia Costa , Costa Neto , Eduardo Tourinho , Egl? Duleckyt? , Eleanor McKeown , Elisa Tarzia , Fernando Jardim , Filipa Lacerda , Filipa Carreira , Filipe Cordeiro , Francisco F. M. Dowsley , Francisco Slade , Gabriela d'Almeida , Gerardo Lisboa , Henrique Scholz , Ines Gois , Irina Konova , Isabella de Brito , Jo?o Faustino , Jo?o Nunes Rosado , Maddalena Lauzi , Marcele Rocha , Mathilde Becker , Nuno Moreno , Pedro Rocha , Pedro Trinc?o Marques , Peter Allen , Peter Schimke , Rachel Mullins , Raquel Santos , Roxanne Jevremovic , Sandro Costa , Simone Franke , Thiago Dieb , Tolga Dizmen , Vinck de Bragan?a, MSc. and Yuki Tschopp .

Thanks for reading it and we wish you a great 2023! If you want to get involved with us,? Get in touch with 351 here!

The 351 Community Team - Building a collaborative startup ecosystem in Portugal