RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Not far from Florianópolis, the city of Joinville, also in Santa Catarina state, is making great strides in transforming and consolidating an innovative scenario and fostering startups.
In an accelerated growth curve, Joinville has left behind its industrial past – for which it once earned the nickname “Manchester catarinense,” in a reference to the second largest urban center in the UK, well known for its industrial past – and has taken a prominent position among the innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystems in the southern region of Brazil
Transfeera, a payment management and processing fintech, has been part of this revolution. The startup was founded in Joinville in 2017, and when it decided to remain there and prevent the famous exodus of startups to the Rio-São Paulo axis, it gained an additional mission: to help foster an ecosystem still in development. To do so, it gathered its belongings and moved to a newly opened technology park inside an industrial hub in the region.
“For us, the decision is linked to development. We were born within this ecosystem and with the awareness that being close to other companies is the answer to growth,” says Guilherme Verdasca, founder of Transfeera. The second half of the year should mark the beginning of fintech operations in the park, according to Verdasca.
The place attracting Transfeera and other companies, institutes and organizations in the region is the Ágora Tech Park, which opened in October 2019 and serves as an innovation arm within Perini Business Park, one of Latin America’s leading business centers.
Under the guise of congregating the main corporate players in the southern region, the Perini Business Park was inaugurated 20 years ago. Today, it houses 250 companies that together invoice R$5.2 billion (US$1 billion) annually, an amount equivalent to 20% of the region’s GDP and 2% of the GDP of the whole state of Santa Catarina.
“Our conclusion is that we would need to continue to encourage growth of companies that are part of the park. Otherwise, in 15 years they would no longer be around for not being innovative,” says Marcelo Hack, CEO of Perini. The creation of Ágora arose from the intention of maturing an existing ecosystem, but which did not have any support for expansion. This is how the 14,000 m² space came about.
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Along with being the largest city in Santa Catarina, Joinville is now also seeking the seal shared by the main national innovation poles and the merit of carrying accelerators, outstanding startups and organizations that contribute to the evolution of Brazilian innovation.
In the wake of initiatives to leave behind its traditional industrial past and become the main destination for startups in the south, the city has been investing in infrastructure – and thereby winning over big names in the private sector.
For Hack, Joinville’s innovation ecosystem is as old as Florianópolis’, but, unlike the coastal city, it did not have support for growth (until recently).
The argument is justified by the innovation scenario in both cities. Florianópolis is among the 10 cities with the largest number of startups in Brazil, and local companies are somewhat mature: 37% of them are in the traction phase, and 18% are in the scaling phase.
On the other hand, in Joinville, the great majority of startups are still in validation stage, and only 8% have revenues between R$500,000 and R$1 million, according to a mapping conducted by the Brazilian Startup Association (AbStartups).
In Santa Catarina, the services and industry sectors dominate, together accounting for over 70% of local GDP. This is a fact that justifies the industrial dominance in the region – and also the interest for more technology and updating.
The city is also ranked 7th in the country with the highest positive balance of jobs, with 6,656 positions created in 2019 – the last reference publicly released by the city. Among the cities in the Southern region, it is second only to the capital of Paraná, Curitiba.
In addition to its thriving economic sector, Joinville also presents positive social indicators. It has been considered one of the best cities to live in Brazil, and boasts one of the best Human Development Indexes in the state.
The presence of different universities also facilitates the technical training of recently graduated professionals and those arriving in the job market. Joinville is home to campuses of the Federal University of Santa Catarina (UFSC), the State University of Santa Catarina (UDESC), and the Federal Institute of Santa Catarina (IFSC).
As with Transfeera, the setup draws attention. At Ágora, in addition to organizations such as SEBRAE (Brazilian Micro and Small Enterprises Support Service) and the Santa Catarina Technology Association (ACATE), the Softville incubator, responsible for incubating the fintech startup, is also present. There, 121 other startups are incubated, extending the list of small companies attracted to the new innovative hub in Joinville.
“We didn’t create anything. Ágora is now nothing more than a cathedral, which created an attraction for important players that did not yet see Joinville as an obvious place for their growth strategies,” explains Jean Vogel, Ágora’s executive director.
Among large companies are multinationals such as WEG, ArcelorMittal and Tigre, present in Perini and which have clearly shown interest in strengthening their relationship with startups with the help of Ágora.
To ease this bridge, the Federation of Industries of Santa Catarina (FIESC) inaugurated a space in the technology park called FaberUp, an open innovation program that seeks to create a network to include companies from the industrial sector and startups.
FaberUp emerged in 2020 to explore the potential for the rapid growth of companies, particularly medium and large-sized enterprises. “We created an industry concept, but with startup features. As a result, we now have a network of industrial companies that want to maintain their growth processes and entrepreneurial vein,” says José Eduardo Fiates, FIESC’s Innovation Director.
The connection is made with the help of workshops and training sessions that encourage the exchange of information, in addition to acceleration programs between large industries, which offer market experience, and small ones, which can contribute with innovative solutions. In almost one year, 185 companies associated with FIESC and 390 entrepreneurs have been mobilized in 7 online workshops held by the project.
Along with bringing together startups and entrepreneurship entities, the new technological city also aims to establish partnerships with academia.
Next to the technology park’s innovation lab is the Federal University of Santa Catarina’s Joinville campus, which concentrates students of exact science courses such as Engineering, Information Systems, and Computing, right in the epicenter of the state’s industrial zone. “Living in this environment and this set of scenarios permits a number of ties. The results are showing up and will continue to do so,” says Vogel.
The entrepreneurs hope that the scenario will be even more positive and, hopefully, Joinville will soon reach the same level seen in other cities in the southern region, known for their innovation “valleys”.
This is the case of the cities of Porto Alegre and Curitiba, for instance. The latter also tends to be a great unicorn birthplace, with companies such as MadeiraMadeira and Ebanx. But, as a consensus among experts, there are no disputes there. It is the body of work that will soon make the southern region the great destination for startups in the country.
Three lessons for innovative cities from Joinville:
Investment in innovation spaces
As in the case of the Ágora, infrastructure is an important step in consolidating local innovation. The construction of spaces that enable open collaboration and interaction between different players is a strong point in the city.
Approaching academia
Part of the construction of the innovative mentality stems from the notion of collaboration between industry, society, government, and private initiative. The city of Santa Catarina delivers another message by encouraging closer ties with the academic environment, which strengthens the partnership between companies, startups, and university students – who are often hired by these companies.
Supporting local entrepreneurship
Becoming an inviting place for entities that support local entrepreneurship is another incentive for an ecosystem to progress. In Joinville – and especially in Ágora – there are institutions such as SEBRAE and ACATE, as well as associations and incubators.
Source: Exame