The Técnico alumni Elizabeth Cruz and Miguel Ventura created GORODATA, an AI-powered business information and insights platform. The two entrepreneurs met at Técnico and had no idea that one day they would become partners in this adventure.
“The idea behind GORODATA has been emerging in recent years. We have both been closely linked to Artificial Intelligence and Data Science and we have seen a great opportunity in terms of finding unstructured data and transforming it into structured data” explains Elizabeth Cruz. “We select relevant data and gather it in a summarized format because, at the end of the day, people’s most precious resource is time, and we help them to acquire the necessary information in less time”, adds Miguel Ventura.
The start-up with the same name as the platform was registered in May 2020. “The feedback has been quite good so far”, shares Elizabeth Cruz. Participation in the Web Summit is part of the company’s launch strategy. Besides attracting customers, the two Técnico alumni are also looking for investment.
The Técnico alumna shares that she had been representing other companies in previous editions, and confesses that this virtual edition seems to provide more networking opportunies. “Everything is easier, we just have to explore, connect and chat. The contact is easier”, she says. “We haven’t the usual Web Summit atmosphere, with the amount of people we are used to, but in terms of contacts I think it works well, at least for us it is working really good”, she adds.
The co-founder of GORODATA knew that sooner or later her path would pass through entrepreneurship: “I always had many business ideas, I even started a small business selling used books when I was younger”, she recalls. His business partner, on the other hand, is attracted by “solving interesting problems, it doesn’t make much difference to me solving them in something where I have more or less participation”, stresses Miguel Ventura.
Utopia-on: a Fintech that promises to save money
Adriano Júnior, Civil Engineering student and founder of Utopia-on, put the course on stand-by to pursue an idea that he had in mind for some time and that seems to have a lot of potential in the national market. Born in Mozambique, he came to Portugal to study and in 2015, when his native country entered a crisis, he began to realise the value of financial literacy. Realising that he did not have great knowledge in this area, he began to learn more about the subject. Starting from his own example and being aware that many people don’t know the importance of this topic, the Técnico student decided to create Utopia-on about a year ago.
“Utopia-on aims to help people making better use of their money and to gain literacy and financial health”, says Adriano Júnior. “I had already attended the Web Summit as a student, and this is my first participation as a startup. Everything is going very well, I have had many meetings, I am meeting a lot of interesting people, some of them are interested in my idea and want to better understand how we can collaborate. I have found potential partners and investors”, he says.
“Técnico is a great school and gives its students a lot of opportunities. I took the most of these opportunities and attended many events where I absorbed knowledge about the world and the industry. And this have stimulated me a lot to create my own company and made me realise that Portugal and Lisbon would be a good place to do it”, he says.
Clynx sees participation in the Web Summit as “an investment in the future”
2020 has been a year full of opportunities for Clynx thanks to Motiphy + , a platform that facilitates the lives of patients in times of pandemic. “Our solution has become even more important because it gives the patient the possibility of doing physical therapy at home in a more convenient, more pleasant, and also safer way, taking into account the context in which we live”, explains Joana Pinto, Técnico alumnae and co-founder of the company.
The Clynx team had already participated in the Web Summit in 2018 and this year they return although in different ways. “We managed to participate through the Road2Web Summit program from Startup Portugal”, shares Joana Pinto.
Gonçalo Chambel, Técnico alumnus and also co-founder of Clynx, highlights “this event gives us a lot of opportunities to learn from other professionals, to have new perspectives, and we try to take maximum advantage of this networking”. “The Web Summit allows us to have access to a very large network of contacts, which can help us immensely to understand, for example, what the world of physiotherapy is like in other countries”, he adds.
Joana Pinto adds “we see our participation in the Web Summit an an investment in the future”. “It is a way of starting to make contacts in other countries, to understand where our solution fits, to know the different health systems, to understand in which markets we want to internationalize in a year or two”, she adds.
The list of Técnico startups goes far beyond these 3 examples, covering areas such as education, Artificial Intelligence, services, hardware and IOT, health, etc.
