The Phira Entrepreneur in Residence program is a unique opportunity for aspiring founders to build their own company from the ground up, inside a venture studio.
What you do need is ambition, resilience, and the willingness to work hard.
We created this program because we believe Europe, and especially Lisbon, needs more platforms for future entrepreneurs to take real risks and start building, but with real support behind them.
At the same time, we set the bar high. This is not a playground, it’s a launchpad for people ready to build something that matters.
This program is for people with big ambition and the courage to lead — even if they don’t yet have the idea, the capital, or the team to start on their own.
We’re looking for individuals who:
You don’t need a specific degree or a polished résumé.
But you do need a track record of ambition and excellence. Whether that means starting something early, overcoming real challenges, or consistently going beyond what’s expected.
This is not for everyone. We’re building with people who stand out.
You’ll join us full-time and start by taking the lead on one of our existing projects. This gives you hands-on business experience and allows us to get to know how you work.
Once you’re ready, we’ll help you transition into founding your own company. That might be based on one of the venture ideas in our internal pipeline or on something we shape together, based on your strengths and interests.
As a founder within Phira, you’ll receive meaningful equity and full support from our team. And alongside the work, you’ll also participate in Hyperdrive: A structured entrepreneurship course led by one of our co-founders, an Oxford alumnus. It’s made to help you apply world-class thinking to real-world execution.
Becoming a founder is hard. Doing it alone is even harder. At Phira, you get the rare opportunity to build your own venture, backed by a team that’s already done it before multiple times.
You’ll move fast, take real risks, and lead the work, but inside a studio that knows the journey and knows when to push, challenge, or support. This is an extremely rare setup: you get to act like a founder, but grow with mentorship, capital, and infrastructure behind you.
One of the first ventures built through this program is Peter.ai:
A company on a mission to make AI more inclusive, especially for older adults.
It’s led by a young German founder who joined Phira straight out of high school. Before that, he had already launched his own political organization at age 14. Now, at age 18, he’s building something with the potential to have a real, lasting impact on the lives of millions.
