How Santa Catarina develops the innovation and entrepreneurship sector

Santa Catarina has more than 16 thousand entrepreneurs and approximately 47 thousand employees. Florianópolis, the state capital, emerges as the city with the highest number of startups — when considering the proportion of springs in relation to the number of inhabitants. The number of professionals follows the development of the innovation ecosystem. The sector is increasingly mature: it has a turnover of R$ 15.5 billion and represents 5.6% of the economy of Santa Catarina, according to a survey by the ACATE Observatory — Panorama 2018.
 
With the area in effervescence, 12 companies from Santa Catarina stood out in the 100 Open Startups ranking. Blumenau has Vex, Avi and Sances Live. Palhoça is represented by TotalVoice and, in Florianópolis, the following startups were recognized: Aquarela Analytics, TNS Nanotecnologia, Startup Mundi, Vibbra!, MSC Med, Byond, JettaCargo and 99labs. Startup Mundi, one of the outstanding companies in the ranking, won the 28th position in its first year and presents an unusual and innovative proposal: a game experience from the innovation ecosystem. Through a board game, it simulates in a linear and practical way the path traveled during the validation and consolidation process of a startup.
 
The tool adds to corporate open innovation programs, innovation promotion institutions and training of entrepreneurs and professionals involved in the ecosystem. Among the organizations that have already participated in the game are names such as Embraer, Accenture, Sebrae and Associação Catarinense de Tecnologia (ACATE). It was in Florianópolis that Antonio Durán, founder of the startup mobLee, and the executive Fabiele Nunes created Startup Mundi. Fabiele has a consolidated career in the corporate world, managing the operations of an aeronautical technology company in over 50 countries. In 2015, he decided to take a gap year and took the opportunity to spend six months in the state capital, where he began to relate to the innovation ecosystem.
 
Thus, they combined Durán's practice, who needed to understand the steps of a startup during its entrepreneurial journey, and Fabiele's experience. "For some time, the startup ecosystem and companies worked in parallel. But now they are getting closer and closer and creating new business channels and partnerships. I believe that innovation is enhanced by diversity. Living the culture of innovation is having the tools, concepts, approaches and processes that contribute for this to happen in an effective way", defends Fabiele.
 
Fostering open innovation in Florianópolis
 
ACATE has several initiatives to foster innovation in the sector. Link Lab, for example, connects large and medium-sized companies, startups, funds and partners to develop businesses in one of the most innovative environments in Latin America — the ACATE Innovation Center – Primavera. Following the concept of open innovation, it allows large companies access to Santa Catarina's innovation ecosystem. Link Lab has Nexxera as a co-founding sponsor and the companies Ambev, Brognoli, ENGIE, Faculdade Cesusc, Flex Contact Center, Marisol, Qualirede, Teltec Solutions and Weg as sponsors.