Lisbon’s Gaminghub drives video games in 2024

After a year of operation, Lisbon Unicorn Factory’s (Unicorn Factory Lisboa) Gaminghub, which celebrated one year in December, has already achieved maximum capacity in the space created to host companies in the video game industry. Currently, this Innovation Centre has 42 companies, with a total of 248 employees, and houses 24 companies with 80 people working on site.

In 2025, Lisbon Unicorn Factory will strengthen its operations in this high-growth sector, aiming to continue to grow the gaming community and continue to support its members through initiatives and participation in international fairs, as well as focusing on partnerships with universities.

Recently, FunPlus, a Swiss unicorn that opened offices this year in Lisbon, was one of the companies to join the Gaminghub, through the creation of Studio Ellipsis in Portugal.

In addition to this studio, the hub houses Fortis Games, a Gaminghub partner that occupies one of the floors, and companies such as Ontop Studios, Phat Fingers, The Gang – the company with the most experience in creating digital activations for brands on platforms such as Roblox and Fortnite, and more than 18 members in a virtual format, such as Volt Games, Testronic Labs, and FRVR.

In addition to Fortis Games, Maleo, an office space management company, and APVP (Association of Portuguese Video Game Producers), which represents Portuguese companies in the sector, are also partners in the project.

“With the growth of the industry in Portugal, which in 2023 generated a turnover of €48.6 million, the creation of a centre of excellence in the area of video games has allowed the local gaming ecosystem and its companies to gain scale and accelerate high potential growth.

After a year in operation, the Gaminghub premises, which reached maximum capacity in the first 3 months, has become the epicentre of the industry”, comments Gil Azevedo, executive director of Lisbon Unicorn Factory.

He adds that “this innovation hub has brought together the gaming community in Portugal, which helps to strengthen the visibility of this industry at an international level. In 2024, we were present at the two largest industry events in San Francisco, USA, and Cologne, Germany, where we received very positive feedback from the community. Together with our partners, we are managing to put Portuguese gaming on the international map”.

In 2024, gaminghub contributed to the presence of three international events in Lisbon, the 2nd edition of DevGAMM Lisbon, the Devcom Leadership Summit and Mobidictum Networking that took place in the Beato Innovation District.

The hub is also an integral part of Gameiberica, along with the Association of Portuguese Video Game Producers (APVP), IndieX and IndieDevDay. As part of this initiative, gaminghub took four studios to Madrid and six to Barcelona, where the largest independent game producers (Indies) were present.

In Lisbon alone fifteen events for the video game community were organised, including Game Breaks, Lisbon’s Game Dev Meet, masterclasses on European video game intellectual property law together with IPNI, and the networking gaming event held during the Web Summit in November.