In early August, a group of 14 Uruguayan startups traveled to São Paulo, Brazil, to talk with entrepreneurs, investors, and potential clients that would allow them to scale their business through expansion in the neighboring country.
The representatives of the companies were specifically at the Cubo business hub, the innovation center leveraged by Itaú in the industrial city and one of the most relevant entrepreneurial hubs in the region.
The Uruguayan startups were there for three days to hold meetings with local startups and business presentations to large corporations, investors and investment funds.
The companies from various fields were Tree House Deco, Bee Seller, Flokzu, Infuy, Lineup, Mowi, SensorData, Alphalabs, Data4Sales, Hey Now Bots, Inswitch, mevuelo.com, Quaris Soluciones, and These.
The companies presented platforms for home decoration, online sales channels, process automation, software development, technological solutions for agriculture, travel agents, corporate employee relocation, and even an online wave and wind forecast service for surfers.
ENTRY BARRIERS
The insertion of these companies in the neighboring country is accompanied by the Uruguayan Chamber of Information Technologies (Cuti).
Itaú, a financial giant in Brazil, pointed out that the Brazilian market presents certain difficulties for incipient companies from countries such as Uruguay. That is why they promoted starting to outline a network of contacts.
Despite possible barriers, Brazil’s scale compared to a small market like Uruguay makes the alternative very seductive for any entrepreneur.
“Brazil itself has the size of a continent and is a very self-sufficient country, so for companies coming from abroad, it is very difficult to enter and connect with the ecosystem without the right connections,” said the director of Digital Innovation and Strategic Alliances of Itaú, Diego Lanza, according to a statement released by the bank and the Cuti.
The association of tech entrepreneurs affirmed that the objective is to “facilitate” being able to “disembark in the Brazilian market,” said the general secretary of Cuti, Amilcar Perea.
The companies that were in Cubo became part of Itaú’s Núcleo Tech portfolio of companies, where there is a special credit policy based on a qualitative analysis of the company and the founders, the bank told Bloomberg Linea.
Itaú is preparing in Uruguay for the second half of this year a “specific support” for local startups, Andre Gailey, CEO of the company in Uruguay, said in July during an interview with Bloomberg Linea.
The Uruguayan entrepreneurs also held a meeting at the Uruguayan Consulate in Sao Paulo, with the participation of the Sao Paulo Business Institute, the Brazilian Institute of International Business Relations, and the company Embrasur.
With information from Bloomberg Línea