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Adamastor Weekly

Week 17

Ecosystem is buzzing

CR

Carlos Resende

Expert Evaluator at the European Commission and Co-founder of Founder Institute Portugal.

5 min read

The ecosystem is buzzing again, and the next days offer one of those rare snapshots where everything overlaps: international networks landing, local communities multiplying events, and universities finally trying to reinvent their role in the talent pipeline. It’s the kind of week that reveals both the ambition and the contradictions of our ecosystem. A city that wants to play globally, but still behaves, at times, like a very charming village.

CAMentrepreneurs Portugal (Cambridge University) arrives with its mix of intellectual curiosity and global confidence — and yes, I’ll be there. Lisbon Connection Week pulls founders, community builders and creatives into the same orbit, adding density to a city that thrives on serendipity but still struggles with coordination. Nova SBE hosts its Pitch Competition — I’ll be there too — one of the rare moments where the ecosystem stops performing and actually evaluates ideas. And The Ventures Global Startup Award steps into the week as well — I’ll be there — adding another layer to this increasingly complex choreography of events, communities and ambitions; The Red Bull Basement at Tecnico Innovation Center; and the Tech Hiring Community Conference by Landing Jobs rounds out the week, reminding us that talent remains the ecosystem’s most persistent bottleneck and its greatest opportunity.

If you want to understand where Portugal stands today, this is not a bad week to observe.

Because while all of this unfolds in Lisbon, other signals appear across the country: Startup HR Pitch & Round Table | APG + 351 connecting startups and corporates; Startup Grind keeping the founder community alive and moving; Omplo’s Viseu reminding us that innovation is not a Lisbon‑only phenomenon; the START Rise Challenge giving bold AI founders a national platform to gain visibility, sharpen their ideas and move closer to real‑world pilots; and, at the pinnacle, SIM Conference in Porto, a gathering that increasingly positions itself as the North’s answer to Lisbon’s gravitational pull.

It’s a busy calendar, yes. But more importantly, it’s a sign of something deeper: an ecosystem learning to operate at higher frequency. More events, more density, more collisions. And beneath the surface, a slow but meaningful shift; universities stepping into the talent pipeline with a different posture, more open to the world, more aware of their role in shaping ambition. Not the headline this week, but an important undercurrent.

For years, our academic institutions lived in a comfortable paradox: excellent islands surrounded by an innovation ecosystem that grew mostly outside them. Talent was produced inside, ambition was developed outside. The bridge between the two was fragile, informal, and often accidental. But the world has changed, and the competition for talent is global. The best students are mobile. And ecosystems that thrive are those where universities are not just suppliers of diplomas, but active engines of innovation.

By watching the events aligned for the coming weeks, you can almost see the outline of what Portugal could become: a country where talent is not something we hope for, but something we cultivate; where ambition is not imported, but produced; where events are not just noise, but signals of a system gaining maturity.

Lisbon is well supplied with events. What we need now is more substance, and substance begins where performance ends, in the uncomfortable spaces where ideas are tested, questioned and forced to grow.

These weeks give us a glimpse of that possibility.

Now we just need the discipline to turn it into reality.

Keep following Adamastor to stay up to date with our ecosystem.

See you at the next event.

✍ Quote of the week

“who you hire is the company you build”

Vinod Khosla

Highlights of the week

Congrats

  • 👏 Tomas Moreno (Head of Innovation Ecosystem at EDP) named among the Top 50 senior corporate innovation leaders in Europe.

  • 👏 Antonio Miguel (Maze Impact) speaker at Impact Europe

  • 👏 Startups selected to be present at Rock In Rio - Smart City of Rock: Getvocalai, Infinite Foundry, Sensaway, Planta smart homes, Trash4goods, Windcredible, Goparkly, Alia, Meetball, Indulge Me, Katchit, Yooddle, and VRGlass

  • 👏 Miha Jagodic and João Lopes (Bloq.it) featured on Forbes 30 Under 30 Europe Class of 2026

  • 👏 Unicage, CoalexAI, and Lympid had been selected for the Visa Innovation Program Europe 2026 Spain & Portugal Edition

  • 👏 Upspeach won Startups by the Sea pitch competition

👏 Sybilion announced a 3.6M seed round

Something to read, listen and watch

Looking for your next spark of inspiration or connection? Discover what’s happening in the ecosystem—check out the Adamastor Events Calendar and find the perfect event that fits your goals, your vibe, and your stage. From founder meetups to investor talks, there’s something for everyone.

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A weekly read on Portugal’s startup scene. The raises, the launches, and the stories behind them. Every Tuesday by Carlos Resende, who’s curated it since 2017.

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