Unicorn factory to open more hubs in Lisbon

Lisbon’s Unicorn Factory, based in the Beato neighbourhood in the capital, is working on expanding into new innovation districts in Lisbon based on vertical thematics.

Reports ECO online news, Saldanha and Alvalade are likely to be the new districts of the capital to house well tech, gaming and web3 verticals. For the time bringing innovation communities and development support in areas such as AI, gaming, blue tech, fintech, sustainability, foodtech and XR.
“The first large innovation district is Beato which is in its first phase. Now we are expanding to other areas. The gaming hub is currently in a soft launch phase, and will be launched shortly in the Saldanha district where a few weeks ago a technical innovation centre was opened, and which is also where Fintech House is based. The Saldanha area can be turned into an innovation centre”, said Gil Azevedo, Executive Director of Unicorn Factory Lisboa on Tuesday on the sidelines of a conference giving an overview of how Unicorn Factory has been performing in 2023.
“The objective is to create strong verticals, some of them will gain sufficient scale to become hubs, others will remain within a community and collaborative logic”, he said.
Saldanha will house the first Gaming hub to advance in partnership with the US group Fortis. The opening of well tech installed in the Técnico Innovation Centre in Argo do Cego In the first quarter of 2024.
Gil Azevedo would not be drawn on new hubs, but of the nine areas listed for the creation of speciality communities, he did say that AI – “an area that I believe will gain scale” and web3 — “where we have lots of talent in Portugal”.