Create here. Grow here. Decide here

There is economic news that should deserve much more attention than what they usually receive. Not because all of them should open television news, but because some help to understand the country we are trying to build for the coming years.

By Paulo Lopes, in Business · 27 Sep 2026, 12:01 · 0 Comments

A recent study by Porto Business School concludes that Portugal could create two or three global deep tech champions by 2030. The country already has science, talent, companies and infrastructure, but it continues to face a familiar problem: when companies reach a certain size and need significant capital to grow, Portugal and Europe itself find it difficult to keep up. In 2025, Portuguese investment in deep tech was around 400 million euros, three times more than in 2018, but only about 2% of the European total.

This is where a second piece of news comes in that helps to complete the scenario. Portugal has joined the new phase of the European Tech Champions Initiative, promoted by the European Investment Bank. ETCI 2.0 aims to raise up to 15 billion euros and, through European funds, mobilise up to 80 billion for more than 1,500 growing technology companies.

The two news items are directly related. Portugal has already shown that it can create technology and companies with international ambition. TEKEVER, Sword Health, Feedzai, Critical Manufacturing and Neuraspace are some of the examples highlighted by Porto Business School. The problem starts when a company needs tens or hundreds of millions to enter a new phase of growth. If that capital does not exist here, it will naturally look for it where it exists.

And with capital, we can also move headquarters, intellectual property, strategic teams and decision-making centres. We can proudly continue to say that a certain company was born in Portugal, but an important part of the economic value created during the following decades may end up in another country.

That is why the real goal should not simply be to create more startups or celebrate more unicorns. It should be to build global companies that keep knowledge, intellectual property, highly qualified employment and decision-making capacity in Portugal.

Capital, however, does not solve everything. The study also identifies difficulties in transferring research to the market, lack of specialised talent and reduced use of the State as the first customer of new technologies. In sectors such as defence, health or infrastructure, having a first large customer can be decisive in validating a solution before taking it to international markets.

Portugal does not need to compete in all technologies. It needs to choose those where it already has real advantages. Space and Atlantic, defence, artificial intelligence, semiconductors and photonics, health and biotechnology, blue economy, energy and green technologies are among the areas identified in the study.

Perhaps we should talk more about this. We spend a lot of time, justifiably, discussing the problems of the Portuguese economy. But we also need to explain what we are trying to build to solve them.

For many years we asked whether Portugal could create technological companies capable of competing in the world. Today we know that it can. The next question is more demanding: will we be able to create conditions for them to grow in the world while maintaining a relevant part of their value in Portugal?

Creating here is important. Growing globally is indispensable. Getting them to continue researching, investing and deciding from Portugal will be the real sign of success.