[INTERVIEW]: Jose Mineiro, Founder and CEO of Visadoro Golden Visas
Jose Mineiro is a well known and respected figure in Portugal’s cultural, political and – more recently – investment migration circles. Today, we speak to Visadoro’s founder and CEO with a view to find out what makes him tick…
How and when did you get involved in the investment migration industry?
Since the Portuguese Golden Visa has been expanded to include the Cultural and Heritage areas, I developed a product centered on Film Production that in some cases allows for an eventual return of investor capital via profit sharing.
How is Visadoro different from other Golden Visa developers and promoters?
Visadoro seeks to integrate all of our infrastructure and processes vertically, thus creating products that have minimal reliance on public administration or service providers – with the exception of legal processing, which we outsource to immigration lawyers.
This approach allows us to be faster and more effective in meeting our clients’ needs and ensuring fast, reliable residency outcomes.
Across the group of companies that Visadoro collaborates with, we can offer more than 5 residency visa types. This constitutes an exclusive and differentiated set of investment migration products unobtainable from any other investment migration firm.
Why did you decide to focus on Belmonte (in Castelo Branco), specifically?
The regional potential for development in the Portuguese interior excites us immensely. We are therefore developing a strong and innovative hospitality concept validated by a number of universities that work closely with us.
In addition, our continued focus on building a strong relationship with the local authorities, combined with the installation of a tech incubator in Belmonte, is enabling us to attract talent and investment to the town and broader region, including via our Startup Investor Visa offering.
What has been your proudest moment since launching Visadoro?
The issuance of the first Cultural Residency Card issued in the country – and we managed to have it issued in 3 months flat.
What will be your key focus area within the business going into 2025?
Adding a new flavour to our existing products, centered on profitability (i.e. ROI) and asset protection.
Golden Visas have come under serious pressure from Brussels in recent years. Where do you think the market is heading?
Our offer was never centered on Real Estate. Our products are all Cultural, Science, Sustainability or Tourism related. Most of these offerings dovetail with research programmes and/or they’re completely in line with the development strategies and objectives of the EU and Portugal. (Therefore, only a seriously biased ideological government would take issue with them.)
What development in the market worries you the most?
The hard-selling techniques by unscrupulous industry players that don’t fulfil clients’ needs, damage the image of the industry, and disrespect the national cultures and goals of the countries hosting residency programs.
Reducing investment migration programs to a commodified auction of residence and/or passports is misleading, and harmful to the industry’s credibility.
What development in the market are you most optimistic about?
The political uncertainty in various geographies, notably in North America, is already driving increased demand for Golden Visas, given Europe’s stability. The same applies to areas currently facing geo-political tensions and/or conflicts.
The Cultural Golden Visa, as a for-profit / capital-guaranteed option, ran into some obstacles in terms of the government approving the underlying projects. Do you think that a for-profit Golden Visa has a future?
The new Portuguese government seems to be aware of these challenges, and we are currently making submission to various branches of government with a view to clear these obstacles.
In the past two years, processing delays at AIMA have caused serious frustration for thousands of residency applicants. Do you think this issue can be resolved, and by when, if so?
A task group has been created with the sole purpose of expediting these processes. I believe that in a short time we will start experimenting a serious improvement in AIMA’s processing speed and volume through-put.
When you’re not busy developing new Residency By Investment products, what do you spend your time on?
Outside of Visadoro, I spend my time developing Portuguese films, mentoring newcomers to the investment migration industry, and addressing audiences interested in the field of “film induced tourism”.
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To get in touch with Jose Mineiro and the team to learn more about Visadoro’s investment migration offering, email hello@visadoro.com.