Unicorns before the Saints | Week #20

As Lisbon gears up for its beloved Santos festivities, a quieter but equally transformative celebration unfolds in the days before: Unicorn Week, a gathering point for visionaries, innovators, and changemakers where innovation meets social impact.

This isn’t just about flashy and hype startups or next-gen tech. It’s about building better cities, places that are more inclusive, sustainable, resilient, and human. At its heart, Unicorn Week challenges us to reimagine what innovation really means when it serves not just the few but the many.

This year, Unicorn Week focuses on innovation that creates real change. That means developing technological tools that improve lives, not just profits. It means designing social solutions that build stronger communities, promote equity, and tackle the problems that policymakers and traditional institutions often overlook. It means building sustainably, in both ecological and financial terms, with practices and products that protect our world while also creating pathways for inclusive economic growth.

Yesterday, I had the privilege of participating in one of Unicorn Week’s meaningful conversations at Casa do Impacto, a cornerstone of Lisbon’s social innovation ecosystem. Alongside Ben Walters and Nuno Comando, we took part in a powerful panel on impact investment, a topic that has moved far beyond the niche. Today, it sits at the center of how we envision and fund a more equitable, sustainable future. We explored how capital, when aligned with purpose, becomes a tool for transformation, not just in developing new products or services, but in reshaping the systems that define our cities and societies. It’s about investing in long-term value, in resilience, in change that actually matters.

Unicorn Week reminds us that innovation isn’t just a buzzword; it’s a responsibility. In a country as rich in culture, creativity, and community as ours, innovation must be rooted in purpose. It should work with people, for people, and never apart from them.

So as we toast to the Saints in the coming days, let’s also raise a glass to the thinkers and doers building the cities of tomorrow, one bold, meaningful idea at a time.

• 🚨 Applications are open for JournalismAI Skills Lab, A 12-week, free, virtual programme designed for professionals to learn how to practically implement LLMs and GenAI in their work and adopt AI technologies in their daily newsroom context. Apply here

• 🚨 Unicorn Day, the biggest event of the year for JUNITEC’s innovation department and the APOLLO program startups, with invited Portuguese startups also attending. The event will be on June 16th at Lispolis

• 🚨 StartUP23 has just launched the S23 Accelerator, a new online and free acceleration program designed to support entrepreneurs at different stages of their business

Week highlights go to:

• 🔷 Unicorn Week is along the week. Check the agenda

• 🔷 Deal-by-Deal do Banco de Fomento this Wednesday

• 🔷 HER FUND training programme: Empowering women investors; this Thursday

Congrats:

• 👏 Bloq.it raised a 28M Series B investment round

• 👏 ADECI (UPTEC incubated) raised 500k

• 👏 Center for Responsible AI is officially incorporated as an independent non-profit organization

• 👏 3 projects from ISLA Gaia — FIREHAWK, SURGICARE, and INSPIRES — have been selected for the crowdfunding training program of Santander X Explorer 2025

• ⚡ Pitch Your Ideas to Portugal Investors & Experts, Online, Tue, Jun 3, 2025, 6:30

[Registration only via the FI Platform](https://fi.co/event/pitch-your-ideas-to-portugal-investors-experts-online-portugal-2025) Do you have a startup, or a strong ide Read more.

✍ Quote of the Day

Capital is a powerful tool. The question is: what future are we financing?

Rose Marcario, Patagonia