Entrepreneurship is an important leverage for social and economic development. Even though not all startups are able to scale, the ones that do, tend to have huge direct and indirect impact in the ecosystems, much higher than their value to the economy.
When it comes to employment, startups and scaleups are job generators — they create and keep talent in the ecosystem. The Porto region has been experiencing this impact.
From a study that was made based on a sample, we were able to learn that these tech-based companies with high-growth potential founded in the region have been creating jobs at a rate above the national average. All together, they have increased the number of employees by 35% between 2015 and 2018. These companies have created at least 7 018 jobs in this period, more than half between 2017 and 2018.
The Covid-19 pandemic brought some challenges and uncertainty, but startups and scaleups have been adapting and showing some optimism.
In an evaluation performed in May 2020 involving 41 startups from Porto, 95% said they would not reduce their teams. 36,6% even said they were hiring in the following 3 months. From these companies hiring, most of them had closed a funding round recently.
A few weeks ago, ScaleUp Porto through Porto Digital, together with ANJE, Founders Founders, Porto Business School, Porto Global Hub, UPTEC, U.Porto Inovação, developed new work with 21 startups to understand their priorities for the next months. We could learn that business development and getting funding were the top priorities for these companies. It doesn’t mean that creating and keeping the best teams was not a recurring subject. Some startups still struggle to find and create the conditions to attract the best talent. Many refer to HR-related needs — training, culture, establishing procedures to manage and retain talent. Even when they mention the need to get funding, it often relates to the creation of the best team.
Finding the talent that will make these companies scale is mandatory for each one of them individually. But it is also fundamental for us all as an ecosystem. We need scaleups.
By creating the conditions for these knowledge-based companies with high-growth potential to scale, we will foster their direct contribution to the economy. Moreover, we will notice a set of spill-over effects in the ecosystem, meaning more jobs, increased production, more productivity.
Public and private entities can work together to promote the creation and attraction of scaleups, by mitigating the challenges they face while growing. This is the vision that brought us to create ScaleUp Porto and a vision that has been moving cities all across Europe.
Companies are like cities, they are all about their people.
Filipe Araújo — Porto’s Vice-Mayor and City Councilor for Innovation and Environment
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