Pina Martins launches new company Growth Ignition with ex-Google

“ Helping Portuguese companies enter and sell on Amazon” and taking advantage of artificial intelligence (AI) to generate business leads is the goal of Growth Ignition, the new project by Miguel Pina Martins ( chairman ) and former Google Portugal, Nuno Pimenta (CEO).

The experience of Science4You, of which Pina Martins is founder and current chairman, on Amazon, a marketplace where “it is the Portuguese company with the most sales”, was the trigger for the start of this new project by the entrepreneur.

The goal? To help Portuguese companies accelerate their digital business, using the American giant as a sales channel to reach a wider audience with their products. But that’s not all. Growth Ignition also has a B2B arm, which uses AI to support companies’ sales teams in generating business leads by aggregating information from social networks such as LinkedIn or contact lists, detecting business opportunities.

“ We are currently working with 10 clients (we started in March) in different sectors. On the one hand, we have some retailers and manufacturers who are exploring the potential for international growth via Amazon and, on the other hand, we are working with a multitude of clients in the area of ​​AI Marketing Automation for generating sales meetings” , Miguel Pina Martins told ECO.

“The results are extremely positive. At Amazon, some of our clients reached close to tens of thousands of euros in sales in the first month and everything is set to reach 250,000 euros in December . In the AI ​​Marketing Automation area, in the first month, we scheduled more than 100 sales meetings, most of them international”, says the manager.

“Our approach is one of deep relationships with our clients, in which the partners are very involved, and that is why we want to grow in a sustainable way, always ensuring this support”, says the manager.

Business objectives

In terms of business goals, the objective is to reach 500 thousand euros in turnover by the end of this year and two million euros in 2026, the year in which they aim to have “30-40 clients” in their portfolio.

The company is being launched with the two entrepreneurs’ own capital. “Once the proof of concept is complete, we may eventually go to the market to raise capital,” admits Pina Martins.

“ The payback of the investment is expected for the middle of next year, but we continue to make significant investments in technology and so this period could be extended . We are building a company for the long term and so we are not obsessed with the payback , but rather with creating an excellent service for our customers”, says the entrepreneur, without revealing the amount of capital invested in the project.

The company is strengthening its team. “We are currently looking for very different profiles: a head of operations , a head of Amazon and a head of AI Lead Gen. On the other hand, we are also looking for slightly more junior profiles ( customer success manager ),” he explains.