Blog
Matias Santos, Founder
How to tell if a European supplier is actually a manufacturer or a wholesaler before you commit money and months to the relationship. This guide covers business registry lookups, VAT and EORI checks, physical verification signals, and the specific questions to ask on a call that a trading company can never answer convincingly, no matter how polished their website looks.
Jun 25, 2026
Matias Santos, Founder
NovaSupplier connects independent clothing brands directly with vetted Portuguese manufacturers. No agents, no directories, no middlemen taking a cut of every order. This post covers exactly what NovaSupplier is, how a brand goes from brief to factory match, what happens once a project is live, and what the platform replaces for founders who are tired of paying someone else to manage a relationship they could manage themselves.
Jun 24, 2026
Matias Santos, Founder
Ovar is a small city on the Portuguese coast, halfway between Porto and Aveiro. If you've heard of it, you're probably in the industry. I grew up here with a family embedded in Portuguese textiles and footwear for generations, on the manufacturing side, the side that makes things and that most people in fashion never see. What I saw growing up was a gap so obvious it was almost embarrassing: Portuguese factories producing garments for recognized European brands, and nobody outside the industry knowing those factories existed. No web presence, no direct access, no way for an independent brand to find them without an agent staying in the middle forever. That gap is why I built NovaSupplier.
Jun 23, 2026