Ten startups from Brazil and Portugal will participate in the Beyond Expo 2023 technology fair, which kicks off in Macau on Wednesday, and wants to bring Chinese investors closer to the Portuguese-speaking markets, the organizer told Portugal Pulse.
“Since Macau is a city where Portuguese is spoken, I believe it is very important to maintain this tradition and we hope to help Lusophone startups get to know the Chinese and Asian markets better,” said Beyond Expo co-founder Jason Ho Kin Tung.
The fair’s program, to be held between May 10 and 12, includes, on Thursday, the second edition of the Brazil-Portugal Innovation Company Roadshow.
The Beyond Expo will feature “at least 60 major venture capital funds,” including Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund Temasek, for whom the Lusophone countries are still “somewhat off the radar,” Jason Ho said.
Despite admitting that “there will be a learning period”, the businessman believes that several large Chinese financial groups may invest in startups as a first step to enter the Portuguese and Brazilian markets.
Jason Ho, son of the leader of the Macau Government, Ho Iat Seng, also praised “the spirit of adventure” of the startups that are trying, through Macau, to make the leap to China, “a huge market, with a lot of potential, but also with enormous competition.
Four of the ten startups were distinguished in innovation and entrepreneurship contests organized in Macau for Portuguese and Brazilian technology companies, including Biosolvit, a Portuguese-Brazilian biotechnology company in the area of environmental protection that won the first edition of the contest in 2021.
Two other companies awarded in 2021 will participate: the Brazilians Bioo, which develops health solutions for diabetics, and Pocket Clinic, which wants to develop a smart syringe for chronic diseases that require continuous injection of drugs.
The list also includes the winner of the second edition of the contest, in 2022, the Portuguese Virtuleap, which combines neuroscience and virtual reality to help increase levels of attention, in the treatment of cognitive diseases, and to delay the onset of cognitive decline.
After two editions of the Beyond Expo limited by the pandemic, Jason Ho said it was not possible to invite more startups because Macau opened its borders to all foreigners “so suddenly” on January 5.
The organizer said he hopes that in 2024 he can count on more projects from Portuguese-speaking countries besides Portugal and Brazil, markets where “the ecosystem for startups is already more mature.
More than 600 companies will participate in the fair this year, but Jason Ho does not hide a bigger ambition: “by 2026, we want that when the world wants to know about technological innovation in Asia, it will come to Beyond Expo.”
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