Carlos Moedas dreams about them, builds factories for them and, if urban planning allowed it, he’d probably place one in every roundabout. And honestly? He’s not far off. Through Unicorn Factory Lisboa, the Mayor has managed to lure a remarkable herd of billion-dollar tech companies — the famous “unicorns” he proudly references at every chance.
So we went digging: who exactly are the 17 unicorns galloping around Lisbon?
- Fintech & Crypto
🇬🇧 Revolut — The global financial super-app shaking old-school banking with digital accounts, FX, trading and expense management.
🇦🇹 Bitpanda — Europe’s top investment platform for crypto, stocks and commodities, 24/7.
🇸🇪 Klarna — The original “Buy Now, Pay Later” disruptor powering flexible eCommerce payments.
🇩🇰 Pleo — Smart business-expense management for modern teams.
🇲🇹 Binance — The world’s largest blockchain and crypto ecosystem.
- SaaS & B2B
🇺🇸 Cloudflare — Internet security and performance for millions of sites and APIs.
🇺🇸 PagerDuty — Real-time incident response. The modern version of the classic engineering pager.
🇺🇸 Iterable — Cross-channel marketing automation for large-scale personalised campaigns.
🇺🇸 Pipedrive — A sales-focused CRM built to close deals faster.
🇺🇸 Upwork — The world’s largest freelancer marketplace.
🇮🇱 HiBob — HR tech for culture, benefits and people management.
🇺🇸 Riskified — Fraud prevention and risk analytics for global eCommerce.
- Born in Portugal
🇺🇸 OutSystems — A global leader in Low-Code platforms for rapid app development.
🇺🇸 Sword Health — AI-powered digital physiotherapy with real clinical follow-up.
- Services, Mobility & Others
🇧🇷 QuintoAndar — A digital-first real estate giant simplifying renting, buying and selling.
🇪🇪 Bolt — A European mobility super-app covering rides, scooters, bikes and food delivery.
🇸🇪 Evolution — The world’s leading B2B casino and live-gaming provider.
Looks like Moedas’ “unicorn dream” is not just alive - it’s thriving🦄
And the best part? This entire herd has raised not only Lisbon’s engineering standards but also the salary benchmarks across Portugal’s tech ecosystem🚀
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