Thanks for your detailed response @ZeevFisher
I’ve also been in Tech for over 30 years, and indeed know a few tech incubator/accelerator Founders. I have never heard them say anything like “What we really need here is more Board Members.” If you wanted to buy your way in, you’d need to be flashing $100 million at them not a measly $100 grand.
It’s easy to blow through $100k as a tech startup… on misguided ideas, poor management, or just blunders like badly configured Facebook campaigns or AWS auto-scaling.
And given the very high failure rate of tech startups, how do you keep this incubator/accelerator afloat to justify its growing multitude of Board Members? Will there be cash calls to recapitalize it? Or does this scheme only work if there’s a constant flow of new “Board Members” bringing money in?
I have to be honest, the optics of this don’t look great. I can already see the news headline: “Portuguese Tech Incubator’s Main Product is Board Members.”
If Portugal genuinely wants FDI in Tech/whatever that’s great. Start by fixing its horrifically broken ARI, where investors put hundreds of thousands into PT and then spend years waiting for any sign of approval. Where they can’t sue to protect their administrative rights because the court system is overwhelmed with such cases. Where even if they got approved they can’t renew their visas.
Tax breaks are nice. But what we really want is the GV that we already invested in - many years ago with only broken promises in return so far.