The Best Place to Raise a Startup you’ve Never Heard Of: Madeira Island
How can an Island in the middle of the Atlantic with no start-up ecosystem whatsoever and amidst the biggest financial crisis in 30 years be one of the best places to start your next Big Project? That’s exactly the reason why!
That may be thought provoking for most of the founders and investors out there but in this 309 square miles island called Madeira could be everything you could wish for your Startup.
1000 km away from Lisbon, 600 km away from Morocco and with a population of 200.000 people (and rapidly decreasing due to heavy emigration) Madeira is mostly know for two things: Sun and Madeira Wine.
How can that be a good thing for your Startup you may ask?
Well what if I told you that Madeira Island has an average of 25 degrees Celsius during summer and only 17 degrees Celsius during winter?
Okay, so you don’t believe that warm temperatures can increase productivity and reduce production costs related with heating, cooling, air conditioning etc… what about having more than 14 hours of daylight during summer and 10 hours during winter?
Why is that important to your startup?
Well for starts it helps you cut on the electricity bill it also, once again, increases productivity and you can even use some of these if you don’t have a window available on the deepest parts of your office.
Also there’s always that tiny detail on getting your entire office off-grid using solar power and maybe finally getting those green Data Centers you always dreamt about.
But maybe you’re not that “into climate” and you care more about costs.
Well, Madeira’s got that covered.
Despite Funchal (Madeira’s “Capital”) being Portugal’s second richest city, you can rent office space monthly for as little as 6.5 euros (5.15 pounds or 8.21 dollars) per square yard or 0.75 euros (0.595 pounds or 0.948 dollars) per square foot and this is in Funchal, if you go to the suburbs the price drops fast. This applies not only to office space but also to house and apartment rentals where rents have been reduced abruptly due to the economical crisis. Heck you can even buy a 6 storey building right in the center of Funchal by a mere 400 000 euros (around 523 500 dollars or 323 000 pounds)!
More than that, you got the cheapest water, electricity and gas (as in gasoline) in the entire Portuguese territory. And if we’re going to talk about gas there’s always the fact that most of the island can get to Funchal in less than 40 minutes (google maps drives slower than most people in Madeira!) due to a huge grid of tunnels and highways created in the last decades, which can largely reduce both the time and costs of work-to-home transportation to you and your employees. If you’re thinking about your employees you inevitably have to think about their families and you can rest assured because besides reduced rent, house costs and gas, private schools bare the lowest prices of all the country and local food production guarantees fresh products all year long.
Then there’s security.
Madeira is a highly secure land. Being a small island in the middle of the Atlantic already prevents big criminality since there’s nowhere to run if everything goes wrong and at the same time it’s quite hard to get rid of any stolen goods since the only way to leave the island is either by plane or ship and the closest piece of land is half an hour away by plane and also an island… The violent crimes percentage is one of the lowest in all the Portuguese territory and the equivalent to a countryside village.
But by now you’re thinking “but that’s basically the same as moving to a small sunny countryside village right here…”
Well but how many countryside villages do you know that have 400 MB broadband Internet (link in Portuguese) available for the average consumer, 10Gbps for businesses (another link in Portuguese) and are fully covered in optical fibre?
Or have a world-class harbor with the ability to receive the biggest cruise ships in the world? What about an International Airport? And as many 5 Star Hotels and Resorts as you want? A restaurant bearing a Michelin Star ? An International Casino ?
Well and what about a financial “offshore”?
That’s right, in Madeira your start-up can be part of its International Business Center (Madeira’s IBC) and enjoy from such financial perks as the second lowest VAT in Europe ( only 16%) as well aslots of other tax benefits which grow larger as you employ more people from the Island and can even in some cases lead to the total absence of some taxes.
But maybe you’re still not convinced at all since you never heard of any big companies on Madeira Island.
Well what if I told you that H & M has just bought a 9 storey building and is going to open the largest H&M store in the entire European Continent right in Funchal? And did you know that the Multi-NationalPestana Hotels & Resorts chain was “born and raised” here in Madeira?
“But what about the availability of employees?” you may ask, or “What about Salaries?” or even “What about Talent?”.
Well that’s just it, amidst this crisis there’s an huge opportunity to find the best talent for the lowest salary since they’re most likely unemployed or working as freelancers due to the fact that unemployment rates are up the roof (Portuguese Link). And with local business closing doors at alarming rates, you can bet you’ll never find more loyal, gifted and cheaper employees as in Madeira.
More than that, the unemployment is higher amongst the graduated (as strange as it might seem), leading to a lot of recently grad students working in super-markets so that they can live another day. Madeira has its own University too: UMA where a lot of gifted students may be found and a big percentage of Madeira’s own high school seniors get accepted and enrol on the best Portuguese Universities like IADE for example, which is part of the World’s TOP 100 Interior Design schools. Talent is everywhere around here and unfortunately it’s not getting any chances to work at all and feeling obliged to leave the country.
These talented people are more than willing to start working for a mere 1000 euros (1300 dollars or 800 pounds) a month since that’s more than twice the Portuguese minimum salary and by helping these struggling youngster find jobs, you’ll soon create a loyal following and most surely enjoy from a lot of local, national and even international publicity.
If you add to all of that the fact that a lot of people in Madeira have family in Venezuela, you can realize the fact that there’s probably no better place to find the right people to expand your business to Latin America, as you can easily find native speakers of both Portuguese and Spanish to help you translate your products and deal with international conversations.
Madeira can also be an awesome window to other territories as more than 300 thousand tourists come to Madeira by cruise only, creating the opportunity for you to embrace new partnerships and create relationships with entrepreneurs from all over the world.
And if none of the above reasons can convince you about raising your startup here, I bet this will:
We at Lim9 (new name, brand and website) have already placed our bets on this beautiful island and we’re doing our best to start breeding a start-up ecosystem here. Without any local funding available, this becomes extremely difficult but the benefits are all here and if you’ve found some investment already, Madeira can easily be the best place in the world to make that money last as long as it possibly could.
On the other hand, if you’re looking for the best place to invest, Madeira can very well be your safe haven as a lot of good ideas, concepts and products are here quietly waiting inside the minds and offices of Madeira’s own due to a lack of cash flow available to start new projects.
So if you’re interested in raising your Startup in Madeira Island or merely curious and wanting to know more, we’re more than willing to help you out in anything you might possibly need.
Just go to our Website Twitter, Facebook or Instagram and send a word our way and we’ll gladly reply back.
John More signing out.
