Lisbon, July 7, 2026 (Lusa) - Portugal has capital available to invest in start-ups, but there is a lack of sufficiently ‘smart’ capital to support the growth of these companies, argued venture capital company, Bright Pixel CEO, João Günther Amaral, in an interview with Lusa.
“I wouldn’t say there is a lack of capital to invest in Portugal; there is capital to invest in Portugal,” said Amaral, referring to the SIFIDE (System of Tax Incentives for Business R&D) funds and the money injected by the state.
The CEO said he doubted that this capital was “the smartest capital there could be”.
“The point is that the capital that exists has to be smart enough to help companies grow and gain the necessary traction,” he added.
According to him, it is necessary to “gain traction in international markets”, given that “the Portuguese market is a very small one”.
“If I set up a company to be successful in Portugal, that company will necessarily always be a small one,” he said.
“If I simply put money in and contribute nothing else to the company I’ve invested in, I’m competing with others merely on the basis of putting money in,” he added.
For the CEO, smart capital goes beyond traditional capital; it does not focus solely on money, but brings a range of other added benefits that help the business grow.
“Smart capital means having access to advisers, having people within my own team who can help companies grow and develop in different ways (…) who can validate the concept, help co-design the solution, and who may even become commercial partners for the solutions that companies develop, and so on,” he said.
“So, it’s everything I can add to the simple act of investing capital in a company,” he added.
On the concept of a design partner, Amaral believes “that it’s not so much about having a client, but about having what’s called a ‘design partner’”.
“The partner I’m going to design the solution for the first implementation, or the second, or the third, or to improve my solution – that’s something very interesting,” he said.
“The increase in capital value is on the way,” he summarised.
João Günther Amaral emphasised that there is no shortage of capital in the market, adding that the fund has to compete to be able to invest in companies.
“It’s not a case of approaching any company that identifies itself as being good and saying: ‘I have capital here, so I’ll be able to take a stake in your company’”.
“There are many very good companies that manage to raise far more capital than they need”, which is why Bright Pixel has to stand out by offering ‘smart capital’.
“This seems counterintuitive; it seems strange that we have to convince someone to want our money, but in many markets at the moment, the issue is not a lack of capital”.
Bright Pixel invests from (Portuguese conglomerate) Sonae’s operating account and uses the company’s structure to support the companies in its portfolio.
Bright Pixel is Sonae’s venture capital arm, established ten years ago and financed exclusively by Sonae, which is the fund’s sole limited partner.
Bright Pixel recently sold one of the companies in its portfolio, Ona, to OpenAI, the owner of ChatGPT; the value of the transaction was not disclosed. Ona is a US-based company that enables artificial intelligence agents to operate through an integrated development environment.
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Lusa
