Major ICT businesses coming to Porto

The emergence of technological centres of excellence in Porto and the new breed of professionally managed major businesses that are coming to town, is, let's say, becoming the everyday news these days.

In trying to shed some light on the current competitive urban profile of the city of Porto, there are some factors that come to mind, namely, the presence of a creative class (Projects like In Residence Porto Platform), the dedicated attention to the urban environment, as far as urban transport and related eco-strategies are concerned (eco bus), the level of education (Porto University is included in the major higher education rankings), and the increasing accessibility to and use of ICTs for public administration.

This result prompts the formulation of the joint work by Porto University and Porto City Hall, through InvestPorto, with a new breed of professionally managed major businesses coming to town, more specifically to UPTEC-Parque de Ciência e Tecnologia da Universidade do Porto. 

Bottlebooks, founded in 2013 by Jonathan Harclerode, who was former senior manager in Accenture's emerging technology innovation division, provides a universal wine data solution, allowing information sharing and updating on products within the industry and associated importers, exports, wholesalers, retailers and wineries, as well as bottle shots.

"It only took us one visit to the city of Porto to realise that this would be the city of our choice." Jonathan Harclerode, CEO of Bottlebooks stated.

Also highlighted by Bottlebooks's CEO were the talented young IT experts in this area in Porto, the ability to speak several languages and the existing programs to support foreign investment. 

"We are convinced that Porto was the right decision, "concluded Jonathan Harclerode.

Another fast growing business to come to Porto is Talkdesk, a cloud-based call centre software provider. Its headquarters are in San Francisco, CA and they also have an office in Lisbon, Portugal. They have just moved to UPTEC in Porto.

Two young Portuguese entrepreneurs founded this company, Cristina Fonseca and Tiago Paiva, in 2011 and raised $450,000 from 500 Startups and an angel investor that year. 

Talkdesk launched at TechCrunch Disrupt in New York in May, 2012 and in August 2014, the company had raised an additional $3.15 million with Storm Ventures leading the Seed Round.

By 2015, Talkdesk was cash flow positive, had quadrupled its revenue since their Seed Round and is on a hypergrowth trajectory: Talkdesk is the world's leading cloud-based call centre software solution.

"The quality of human resources trained at University of Porto, the innovation ecosystem and the positioning of the city as a launching platform are main drivers to attract potential investors, both national and international", affirms Carlos Melo Brito, Director of UPTEC and Pro-Rector of the University of Porto for Business Relations, Innovation and Entrepreneurship.

Porto is already the national leader in start-ups creation, ahead of Lisbon, according to the recent study entitled «Portugal Rising: Mapping ICT Scaleups».