Solo, Fearless, and Building Big Things: Why Female Founders Are Choosing Lisbon

I’m writing this from a sun-washed rooftop in Graça, laptop balanced between a café au lait and the stubborn Atlantic breeze. Below me, the 28 tram clangs past tiled façades, and in the distance I can just make out the pink-and-blue mural that spells “Lisboa é de todas”—Lisbon belongs to everyone.

For a growing cohort of solo female founders, that mural feels like a direct invitation. Over the past five years, Lisbon has evolved from a pleasant European capital into a full-blown startup crucible: accelerators sprouting in former factories, VC offices tucked behind azulejo-lined streets, and meet-ups so frequent you could attend one every night and never repeat a venue.

But statistics rarely capture the feel of a place. So I spent the last three months talking with women who moved here alone to build companies from scratch—no co-founders, no safety net, just a vision and (in one case) an overfed cat named Fibonacci. What follows is equal parts playbook and personal diary: data on visas and costs, but also the unfiltered stories of three founders who’ve turned pastel-colored daydreams into term sheets and traction.

1. Why Lisbon Appeals to Solo Female Founders

When I asked the founders to sum up Lisbon’s draw in a word, the answers came back: space, serendipity, safety. These are shorthand for five macro-advantages:

1. Lifestyle without the price tag
   Lisbon delivers the coastal-city energy of Barcelona or San Francisco at a far gentler cost (more on exact numbers later).

2. English-friendly
   While Portuguese is poetic, most incubators, accountants, and baristas switch to English on autopilot, lowering friction for newcomers.

3. Talent magnet
   Between Instituto Superior Técnico, Nova SBE, and a steady inflow of digital nomads, hiring interns or junior devs is relatively painless.

4. Founder-forward policies
   The Startup Visa and Tech Visa programs explicitly court non-EU entrepreneurs, and the government co-sponsors funding like Portugal 2020 grants.

5. A supportive, diverse community
   Lisbon’s entrepreneurial scene is small enough that people remember names, but big enough to sustain niche networks—think Women in Blockchain Lisboa or SheSays Lisbon.

“Lisbon gives you the breathing room to experiment. In London I was optimizing for runway. Here I’m optimizing for product-market love.” — Anika Singh, founder of a climate-fintech startup

2. Navigating Visas, Accelerators, and Grants

Visa acronyms can look like alphabet soup, so let’s unclutter the bowl. Below is the cheat sheet I wish I’d had when I landed:

Accelerators worth knowing

1. Startup Lisboa – Flagship program; sector-agnostic, 10 years of exits.
2. Beta-i “Free Electrons” – Tailored for energy/climate startups.
3. Fábrica de Startups’ “Global Female Accelerator” – Women-only cohort launching again this autumn.
4. Techstars Lisbon (Web3) – Equity-based, but mentors include Coinbase alumni.

Non-dilutive funding sources

• Portugal 2030 (successor to Portugal 2020): reimburses up to 50 % of R&D expenses.
• EIT Digital Venture Program: €15k initial grant, no equity.
• European Innovation Council’s WomenTechEU: €75k for female-led deep-tech startups.

Pro tip: Opening a local bank account is harder than debugging CSS on Internet Explorer. Many founders sidestep the ordeal by sticking with multi-currency business accounts like TransferWise (now Wise) or Revolut, which we compared in detail in our Wise vs Revolut business account deep-dive. Whichever you choose, Portuguese VCs will accept it for initial wire rounds.

Call-out: BorderPilot’s visa wizard crunches your revenue, IP ownership, and hiring timeline to suggest the optimal permit before you file—saving an average of €1,140 in lawyer fees.

(Okay, that was almost salesy. But you’ll thank me later.)

3. Cost-of-Living and Safety Insights

I crowdsourced real budgets from 17 founders; here’s the median monthly spend in 2024:

Safety consistently ranks high. Portugal sits at #7 on the Global Peace Index, and Lisbon’s police data back that up: violent crime dropped 11 % in 2023. Several founders mentioned they feel safer walking home at 2 a.m. in Cais do Sodré than they did at 9 p.m. in their previous cities. Still, you’ll want to keep the usual street smarts—pickpocketing on tram 28 is a rite of passage.

4. Community, Networking, and Mentorship

The Lisbon Slack for Female Founders pings with job leads, lawyer recs, and the occasional “Anyone up for surfing at Carcavelos before stand-up?” message. If you’re coming in cold, start with these low-friction entry points:

• SHESHARP Brunch (monthly) – Rotating cafés, topics range from cap-table surgery to impostor syndrome.
• Casa do Impacto – Incubator inside a 17th-century convent; hosts Female Founders Fundraising Fridays.
• Surf Office Retreats – Intensive three-day sprints in Ericeira; 30 % women-led teams and rising.
• Women in Product Lisbon – Product-strategy meet-ups, free Figma workshops.

Mentorship still skews male in senior VC roles, but local angel networks like CoreAngels Femtech are tilting the ratio. One founder told me: “In Lisbon, I stopped asking ‘Who will mentor me?’ and started asking ‘Who can I mentor?’” That mental flip—seeing yourself as a resource, not just a recipient—turns out to be rocket fuel for confidence and connections.

5. First-Person Interviews with Three Startup CEOs

I promised stories, so let’s meet the women behind the metrics.

5.1 Marta Oliveira — CEO & Solo Developer, FisheyeXR

Sector: Augmented Reality for heritage tourism
Moved from: Porto → Lisbon (2021)
Biggest Hurdle: Non-technical storytelling to investors

“My cap table is just me and my homemade kombucha. I mean that literally—my first ‘office’ was my kitchen, steam fogging my glasses while I coded. Getting my Startup Visa was straightforward because I had an incubator lined up, but fundraising was different. As a solo dev, I got grilled on ‘founder market fit.’ The fix? I built a 30-second AR demo of investors’ own offices. They put on the headset, saw their walls morph into Lisbon’s Jerónimos Monastery, and the conversation changed from ‘Is AR ready?’ to ‘How big a round do you need?’”

Marta’s Lisbon Hacks

• Ride the night bus from Cais do Sodré after midnight; it’s free if the validator is down (which is often).
• For grants, time your application just after fiscal year rollover—budgets refresh and approval odds jump.

5.2 Anika Singh — Founder & CFO, CarbonStacks

Sector: B2B carbon-offset marketplace
Moved from: London → Lisbon (2022)
Biggest Hurdle: Banking & payroll

Anika is the definition of numbers-driven; she once built a spreadsheet to rank coffee shops by “espresso ROI” (caffeine per euro). Yet Portuguese banks humbled her.

“I walked into Millennium BCP with a meticulously prepared dossier: Articles of Association, proof of address, projections. They asked for my ‘fiscal representative,’ which I didn’t have. I spent three weeks pinballing between branches before opening a Wise Business account and paying suppliers via IBAN. BorderPilot’s dashboard flagged that EU grants require a local NIB, so I finally partnered with a Lisbon-based accounting firm. It cost €900 per year, but that’s cheaper than the cortisol I spent before.”

Anika’s Lisbon Hacks

• Tap into EDP’s Starter Business Acceleration Program for energy/climate ventures—no equity taken, stipend included.
• Keep a spare phone charger in your coworking locker; Portuguese sockets switch from Type C to Type F in older builds, and adapters vanish faster than Pastéis de Belém.

5.3 Sofia Ahmed — Founder & Product Lead, MezclaAI

Sector: Multilingual voice-AI for customer support
Moved from: Dubai → Lisbon (2020)
Biggest Hurdle: Loneliness

Sofia landed two weeks before the first COVID lockdown—talk about timing. Her coping strategy? She built a product prototype that voices quarantine check-ins for hotels.

“Lisbon can feel like summer camp: gorgeous views, but if you don’t pick a cabin, you eat alone. I joined every Slack, attended Zoom happy hours, yet something was missing. Once restrictions lifted, I volunteered at a surf-therapy NGO in Costa da Caparica. That cracked open friendships I still lean on. Remember: the city won’t hand you community; your calendar will.”

Sofia’s Lisbon Hacks

• Use Rede Expressos buses for weekend R&D trips to Porto; onboard Wi-Fi handles Git pushes.
• For female-focused mentorship, reach out to Beta-i’s Lisboa Women in Tech office hours—slots open on the last Monday monthly.

The Thread That Connects Them

All three founders:

1. Arrived alone—no co-founder, no family nearby.
2. Secured initial traction through local pilots (heritage sites, energy firms, hotels).
3. Transitioned from remote fintech-style banking to a Portuguese fiscal presence once grant money required it.

Their journeys illustrate a consistent pattern: treat Lisbon as an MVP lab, not just a cheaper London. Establish proof-points locally, then scale globally.

6. Practical Playbook: Your First 90 Days in Lisbon

Below is the condensed roadmap I give consulting clients—tweak to taste:

Week 1–2
• Secure a 30-day Airbnb in Arroios or Alcântara (walkable, less touristy).
• Schedule NIF and bank appointments via Bordr or local lawyer.
• Attend at least one event: Female Founders Lisbon or Productized Meetup.

Week 3–4
• Choose coworking: Second Home (if you need investor visibility) or IDEIA Hub (budget).
• Interview accountants—ask whether they’ve handled the Startup Visa’s KPI reporting.
• Draft grant applications; bookmark submission portals.

Month 2
• Pilot your product with a local partner; Lisbon’s municipal agencies love innovation trials.
• Open a Portuguese LLC (Sociedade por Quotas) if grants demand it.
• Network on exuberant.pt—a monthly directory of funding rounds.

Month 3
• Decide whether to extend stay via Startup Visa, Digital Nomad Visa, or D7.
• Budget for health insurance; Médis individual starts at €45/mo.
• Lock in medium-term housing (Uniplaces, Flatio) before peak summer.

For those eyeing multiple bases—say, splitting winters between Tbilisi and springs in Lisbon—read our Georgia Digital Nomad Visa renewal guide to avoid back-to-back visa expiry surprises.

7. What Could Trip You Up (and How to Dodge It)

1. Bureaucratic cadence
   Portuguese offices run on “mañana-ish” time. Always book appointments two weeks earlier than your deadline.

2. Rainy-season blues
   November to February delivers horizontal rain. Coworking spaces fill, and vitamin D levels nosedive. Pack daylight lamps or plan a mini-escape to Madeira.

3. Social burnout
   FOMO is real in a city with 300+ tech events a month. Protect build time by blocking “deep-work” days.

4. Cap-table dilution from accelerators
   Some local programs ask for 7–10 % common stock. Compare that against grants or zero-equity options before signing.

5. Legal complexity of grants
   EU money often arrives after you spend it. Maintain a cash buffer equal to at least two months of projected grant reimbursements.

Pull-quote: “Lisbon isn’t a silver bullet; it’s a sandbox. The city gives you permission to break things—professionally and personally—until the version of you that can scale is ready.”

Final Reflections

In Portugal, there’s a word—saudade—that means a wistful longing for something you’ve yet to experience. Every founder I interviewed confessed to feeling a pre-emptive nostalgia for Lisbon even before boarding the plane. They’d scroll through photos of terracotta rooftops and imagine brainstorms against sunset backdrops.

Fast-forward a year, and their nostalgia has matured into ownership. They’re hiring local grads, closing VC rounds, buying three-month Metro passes, and debating whether the natas at Manteigaria really are superior to Fábrica’s (answer: eat both, decide later).

If you’ve been nursing a product idea and wondering where to plant it, you could do worse than a city that treats entrepreneurs as an unofficial export strategy—and still gives you surfable waves 20 minutes from your stand-up.

Ready to see how Lisbon fits your runway, visa timeline, and burn rate? Spin up a free BorderPilot relocation plan and let our data engine customise the next chapter of your founder story. Até já!