Indico Capital Partners

Choosing the right route

• Tech startup, pre-seed to Series A: use the Get Investment route. You are pitching a fund, so there is no application form to fill in.
• Ocean-related SME with growth potential: use the Blue Fund route, which is separate from the tech funds.
• Not based in Portugal, Spain or Italy: Indico will look at you only if the company is related to one of those countries.

How to approach Indico

• Send a deck by email to futureunicorn@indicocapital.com for a tech startup.
• Send SME enquiries to blue@indicocapital.com.
• Explain the problem you solve, the size of the market, how your solution compares with competitors, why your team will succeed, what you have achieved so far, how much capital you are raising, and your main challenges.

What the firm looks for

• Teams that are ambitious and strong at execution.
• A market large enough to produce a global category winner.
• For SMEs, growth potential, expansion into export markets and better margins.

Indico Capital Partners is a venture capital firm with its main office in Lisbon and a second office in Madrid. It invests equity in tech startups and in ocean-economy companies, and it is open only to founders whose company is based in, or related to, Portugal, Spain or Italy. Founders based in India are in scope only where the company has that link.

The firm describes its mission as backing entrepreneurs from Southern Europe who go from local to global, since its markets at home are small. By its own account it became an independent venture capital firm in Portugal in 2018.

How Indico invests

Indico's tech funds mostly invest from pre-seed to Series A, and it invests selectively at Series B and C. The firm says the best time to approach it is when a company has revenue at seed level, and that tech and ocean founders who are invested in become part of a wider community of founders, partners and co-investors.

The ocean focus runs through a separate Blue Fund. It makes expansion investments in ocean-related small and medium enterprises that have strong growth potential and significant operations in Portugal.

Who can apply

Tech startups must be based in, or related to, Portugal, Spain or Italy, and must have a unique, scalable solution to a large business-to-business or consumer problem. The firm lists focus areas including artificial intelligence, deep tech, enterprise software, space tech, health tech, fintech, consumer and robotics.

Ocean-related businesses must be based in Portugal or have very significant operations there. The Blue Fund focus areas include sustainable aquaculture, fisheries, ocean renewable energy, maritime operations, shipbuilding and repair, and waste and circular economy.

Funds

Indico runs several closed-end venture funds. The public list includes Indico VC Fund I for early-stage ICT startups, Indico Opportunity Fund I, which supports the VC Fund I portfolio, and the Indico Blue Fund for the ocean economy. Indico Venture Capital Fund II is a later-stage fund for Portuguese tech startups, and Indico VC Fund III is also listed. Fund sizes and co-financing partners are on the firm's About Us page.

Scale

The firm's pages do not agree on how many companies it has backed. The home page gives 59 companies invested since 2019, and the Get Investment page gives 56. It also reports screening over 4,000 investment opportunities since 2019. Assets under management are given as a single figure on the home page and as a different figure on the investor page, so check the current number on the site before you rely on it.

Locations

The Lisbon office is at Rua Bacelar e Silva, 5, in Lisbon. The Madrid office is based at Google Campus in Madrid. Investor and founder enquiries are routed to separate role inboxes on the contacts page.