Breakfast with António
“¿Did you know? ¡This is where Portugal was born, so it’s definitely a fantastic place to innovate!”
António smiles jovially as he joins our group at a Largo da Oliveira café in the small town of Guimarães, near Oporto. On the table, just a few coffees and a delicious, traditional bolinho de bacalhau, a temptation I did not want to avoid. Around the table, a deep and intense conversation in which we devote all our attention.
António Murta is a living legend in the world of Portuguese entrepreneurship. For several decades he has been a founder, business angel and investor in many startups of international success. For instance, he was the creator and CEO of Enabler, a systems integrator acquired by Wipro in 2006 for 41 million euros. Although he reminds us, with a wink, that his best investment was Mobicom, where he got a multiple of 800 times.
In spite of all that, António is an approachable, humble person, the kind who knows how to draw lessons from both achievements and failures. He is open to comments from others, always polite in the answer even if his opinions differ, and if he slightly dominates the conversation is for no other reason than the breadth in his knowledge.
We talked for a while about the share economy, which incarnated in companies such as Uber, Airbnb and TaskRabbit is already a global reality. We went back and forth on the social impact it is having and whether we are at the end of the cycle or there are still opportunities. António was an investor in 360imprimir, which has mapped a network of local printers and buys their unused capacity to execute the tasks contracted through the website, and is enthusiastic about the possibilities that still exist applying this business model to other sectors.
The conversation gradually turns to cybersecurity, one of the expertise areas of Conexo — that’s why our first investment was in Buguroo, a Madrid based startup that fights identity theft and has experienced a 600% growth in less than a year —. António agrees that this is a field in which the demand for solutions will continue accelerating, because the cybercriminals are increasingly numerous, better prepared, and more innovative. He refers us to the book “Future Crimes” by Marc Goodman, senior advisor to the FBI, Interpol, and his companion at MIT, describing the multiple ways in which criminals catch and plunder their victims. Maybe the colorful life of people like Pablo Escobar will continue to have a morbid popularity, but nowadays digital crime moves more money than all the world drug traffic together.
“And the future looks increasingly frightening.” — continues António — “Imagine … now the hospitals are being digitized, many of the machines in the operating rooms are IoT and connect to the network, which is undoubtedly necessary to give a modern service … but it also opens the door to a whole new world of opportunities to erase, impersonate, steal, extort …
On the black market, the data from your MRI scanner is more valuable than a credit card. “
This exciting new universe, the “digital health” understood as the intersection between information technologies and the medical sector in a broad sense, is the focus of Pathena Investments, António’s new fund. From there we can expect to watch blossom companies that use intelligent software to protect our medical records, semantic analysis to catalog patients’ symptoms, machine vision to support doctors in the study of radiographs, advanced algorithms to discover contraindications in complex drug interactions, and who knows what other advances that will put our imagination to the test.
Completely immersed in the conversation, António suddenly looks at his cell phone and apologizes profusely because he must leave to — ironies of life — an important appointment with his doctor. But not before sharing the moment when an entrepreneur called him last week while he was driving to explain how her startup was solving a complicated health problem … a story that unfortunately we should omit here for confidentiality; only to mention that António was so moved by the vision taking shape that his blood pressure shot up and he had to stop in the roadside to calm down and continue the exciting dialogue.
António departs but leaves behind an impression that lasts; in his adolescent energy and joviality that contrasts with his advanced age, lest the years make a dent in his enormous curiosity and adventurous spirit. One last note: Murta is now studying to have a medicine degree. Deserves an ovation and a parade on shoulders, my friends.
This is what we need most in our latitudes. People with the profile, experience and attitude of António, the rebelliousness of not adapting to the fact that “this is the way things are” and the appetite to venture into the unknown. Too often we fall into that national defeatism of the “let others innovate, we will copy”, or even worse of the “everything is already invented”. In those cases, I like to remember the words of my friend Eric:
“Mankind has been traveling for hundreds, thousands of years, and carrying their gear on the way with great efforts, but it was only in our generation that someone had the happy idea of putting wheels on a suitcase.”
However, I must confess that it is hard for me to avoid triggering my blood pressure when I get on an Uber in Madrid and the driver shares that, beyond coercion, insults, even attacks by certain taxi drivers, the authorities force him to report all his trips … on paper. Of course, all the data is in the app, but that is not enough and should they print it the police fines them anyway. It must be written by hand.
Ways to use the law for the benefit of established interests, instead of the common interest. Like requiring a printed signature for many identity verification processes that can be done all the same or better with digital means. And I will not start talking about notaries, brokerages and depositaries because then for sure I end up in the intensive care unit.
I will rather ask you the following: Do you know that there is a Chinese company that is giving a tremendous beating at their own game to both Apple and Samsung in the African market? You probably have not heard of Transsion before, but the fact is not accidental: Vice President Arif Chowdhury is very clear about why they have been so successful.
“We have optimized the technology of our cameras for the African complexions, so that our devices adjust the light better for dark skin tones and the pictures look prettier”.
Nope, nobody in Apple nor Samsung nor any other manufacturer in the world had noticed that until some ingenious employee of Transsion had the happy idea. What should competitors do? Ask the government to seize all units lest their own distributors are forced out of work? Ask the authorities to confiscate the entire inventory because it discriminates against the white population?
Please draw your own conclusions.
