Adelina Peltea, the co-founder of the startup Splinter.me – aiming to improve the recruiting business (profiled on Romanian Startups too), was selected to participate at Lisbon Challenge startup acceleration program this year (other Romanian startups selected includes Monitor Backlinks, CallerQ, Eventya, 123dressme, Gameleon).

The Lisbon Challenge is an ambitious 4-month acceleration program aimed at eager startups in the growth phase, looking for a truly transatlantic international program.
The Lisbon Challenge is based in Lisbon (Portugal) with Investors Days in New York, São Paulo and London.
This summer 75 teams will meet with 200 international mentors & investors for a chance to be chosen as the 10 winners of the Challenge. Startups from any sector can apply, no equity is taken and no restrictions apply.

The article below is reproduced with her permission (published originally on her blog).

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It has been a month since I am exploring the startup hub in Lisbon, as I am participating Lisbon Challenge accelerator program on behalf of my startup, splinter.me.

And time has come to share my impressions on the local scene to all the founders out there that are looking for a great hub to settle in, or at least explore for a while. As a matter of fact, Lisbon’s movers and shakers encourage international startups to mingle here at least for a while, so here are 8 reasons why you should drop by:

1) Beta-i, the main organization supporting the local entrepreneurship, are damn good at what they do and are definitely the go-to people if you come by.

2) All main and influential local institutions support the local startup scene. For example, Beta-i has the support of Lisbon’s Mayor, Portugal’s President and of the biggest bank, Caixa Geral de Depositos. Besides, they also have the support of the European Commission and Seedcamp.

3) Internationalization is here to stay. Beta-i and Startup Lisboa has already attracted startups from abroad to participate in their incubator and accelerator, in order to help local startups learn better and get a global perspective.

4) Entrepreneurship in Lisbon is designed to be sexy. Both Beta-i and Startup Lisboa offices are in super cool and central locations, enabling startups to have their offices in the best places in town (not in university campuses, not in periphery tech centers).

5) The local VCs are damn fast. We have applied to Portugal Ventures’ Call for Entrepreneurship and two weeks later we already got a meeting.

6) Lisbon and the entire Portugal is packed with great technical talents (ranging from developers to hardware engineers) up for the grabs (still crisis here) at very cost-effective salaries.

7) The local culture is simply amazing. Portuguese people are really nice, welcoming, willing to help, and modest (sometimes maybe too modest).

8) Lisbon offers low costs of living, great weather (ranked #3 in the world for this matter),lots of cool outdoor activities (like surfing, a must try), and amazing food and wine.

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To read in details about each of these reasons please head to Adelina’s blog.