Lisbon, March 6, 2026 – Bison Bank, a Portuguese investment bank, reinforced its strategic support for the national innovation ecosystem by partnering with the first major annual event of Angels Way, the largest angel investment community in the country — a network of investors who invest their own capital in early-stage startups.
The initiative, held last Friday, February 27, at Cloudflare’s offices in Lisbon, brought together around 120 investors and founders for an afternoon dedicated to project presentations and networking, with a strong focus on Artificial Intelligence (AI) solutions.
Launched in 2025, Angels Way began with the challenge of democratizing investment in startups in Portugal and has since become the country’s largest angel investment community, with 436 investors and 10 investments already in its portfolio. The first major annual Angels Way event took place at Cloudflare’s offices with the strategic support of Bison Bank and gathered around 120 investors and founders.
António Henriques, CEO of Bison Bank, opened the event by highlighting the importance of Portuguese startups adopting a global and ambitious perspective. He emphasized that, in order to attract and justify the capital of investors who compare opportunities with alternatives such as the S&P 500 (with average annual returns of 11–12%), the projects presented must aim for significantly higher returns, reflecting both the inherent risk and the innovation potential they offer. He added that “Portugal has the talent and the environment they are looking for to live, and they have the capital our startups need.”
“If the world is global and we want to attract investment from international markets, we must think and communicate according to their expectations. Portugal has the talent and the attractive environment that major international markets value, and those markets, in turn, hold the capital that our startups need. The path is to build and be global from Portugal, and to capitalize on this flow of investors to position our projects in an attractive and competitive way,” said António Henriques.
The event featured eight startups presenting their solutions in areas such as sports data analytics (Courtmaster), healthcare (Medgical) — implementing AI in clinics and hospitals — legal technology (ByTheLaw), and the future of influencers in the AI era (Nixar).
Tocha, spokesperson for Angels Way, highlighted the success of the community. “The support of partners who think ahead of their time, such as Bison Bank, and of technology giants like Cloudflare, who opened their doors to us, is recognition that we are on the right path. This event is living proof of the strength of our community and the brilliance of what we aim to achieve with our entrepreneurs.”