Development bank signs all contracts for its Venture Capital Programme

Portugal’s development bank Banco Português de Fomento has now signed all of the contracts regarding its Venture Capital programme according to online news source ECO citing an official source at the institution led by Ana Carvalho and Celeste Hagatong.

The Venture Capital Programme, which has an allocation of €400 million, only has €4.94 million invested in companies, or 2%, but €358.9 million have already been contracted, and venture capital companies and financial intermediaries have already received €14.24 million, according to the latest data update published by the bank on 3 June.

All of the contracts have been signed and just a Management Regulation remains to be firmed up according to the source.

The difference between the €358 million contracted and the €400 million allocation lies in the fact of the programme still having to overcome to checking steps for execution targets: one this month and a second in March 2025.

“The fulfilment of the objectives set in these targets will allow venture capital funds to apply for a reinforcement of the contribution of the Capitalisation and Resilience Fund (FdCR)”, explained an official source from the institution.

Therefore, the programme needs to be allocated “to accommodate the possible reinforcements of the funds.”

BPF is not presently planning to transfer funds to programmes such as Consolidar (Consolidate), where venture capital has strong pipelines and which often request more funds. This is also because there is a greater investor appetite to invest in company consolidation rather than in startups.

Of the 19 venture capital companies initially selected, three have pulled out, which has freed up some €84.85 million of FdCR and three have already invested in companies: Indico, Alea and Oxy.

Indico has invested in Rows (€4.98 million) and Routinedisplay (€1.5 million)

Alea Capital Partners has invested in Keeyns Portugal while Oxy Capital has injected €625,000 in Crossing Answers.

Investments made by venture capital companies in various companies must be completed by the end of December, 2025.