What Algae taught us
A real-estate platform, a Lisbon building, and the lessons that now shape every project.
Algae began with a simple promise: anyone should be able to own a piece of a building, starting from €10. The idea itself was older — a comparison site for real-estate crowdfunding, started in 2015 and stopped because it could never pay for itself.
In 2021, after a series of talks around the book, the idea came back with blockchain behind it. Algae was pitched in Madeira that June, built a team of five and a community in Lisbon.
The building
The first property was meant to prove everything at once: a 450 m² former commercial space in central Lisbon, to be turned into a coworking space with a podcast studio, financed through the platform itself. About €280,000 of the €770,000 needed came in. Then the payment provider went bankrupt, the financing stalled, and the project stopped.
Looking back, the platform, the blockchain, the renovation and the operation of a coworking space were four difficult things carried at the same time, by the same person.
What changed afterwards
- Sell before raising. Proof of demand beats a pitch deck.
- Test before building. Features chosen from assumptions are expensive.
- Surround yourself. A single founder can't be platform, builder and operator at once.
- Keep the admin in its place. Legal and regulatory work is necessary — and it can swallow a year.
The real-estate concept was closed in January 2025, too early for its market. The lessons stayed. They are the reason Blue Green now works one project at a time.