On August 31, Investe São Paulo held the 2nd SP Conecta, an event that brought together several innovation support agents, corporations, financiers and international organizations to serve startups free of charge at Investe São Paulo's headquarters, in the Parque Tecnológico do Estado, located in the neighborhood of Jaguaré, in the capital of São Paulo.
One of the programming panels brought together Elisa Carlos, innovation manager at ABDI – Brazilian Agency for Industrial Development; Raphael da Silva, head of FINEP's equity investments department; and José Marques Pereira Junior, SEBRAE service consultant, to talk about “Public sector incentives for entrepreneurship and innovation”. Each of the speakers explained how the entity they represent is encouraging the startup ecosystem and entrepreneurial culture in Brazil, even in a scenario marked by economic downturn, absence of an industrial policy and criticism of the recent legislation on the taxation of angel investors .
Elisa Carlos explained that ABDI is linked to the Ministry of Development, Industry and Foreign Trade (MDIC) and launched, in March 2017, the National Startup Industry Connection Program, which will have its results presented at an event to be held in São Paulo, in the September 21st. “With this first edition, we were able to understand how players behave. We have seen that when a startup receives the ABDI seal of recognition, the doors of industries open to it more easily. ABDI's monitoring of these new entrepreneurs will include tests, the pilot and homologation, so that the project is actually acquired by the industry”, he highlighted.
Train entrepreneurs and help them shape their business model. These are two of the functions carried out by SEBRAE, according to José Marques Pereira Junior. “We offer different services to micro and small entrepreneurs, but I consider it important to highlight our role in training entrepreneurs at the beginning of their careers, so that they arrive more robust and prepared to continue the project and seek investments in organs with ABDI, FINEP, among others”, he explained.
Rafael Silva spoke about the Finep Startup Program, which supports startups that already have prototypes, but that have not yet gained traction and have not yet attracted funding from seed money or venture capital🇧🇷 “FINEP will share the risk with the entrepreneur, in a phase of the business characterized by high demand for capital and low generation of internal cash. However, we do not want to create a class of entrepreneurs dependent on public resources. For this reason, we encourage entrepreneurs to seek additional private funding for our program. This proactivity generates points in our evaluation of the startup”, he highlighted.
About the 2nd SP Conecta
This edition of SP Conecta had a connection area with 42 support institutions and seven startups during the morning, where entrepreneurs were able to establish networking contacts, answer questions and exchange ideas. At the same time, a program with two lectures and two panels was held. More than 500 people were present.
In the afternoon, the South American regional stage of the Startup Worldcup 2018 was held. Organized by Fenox Venture Capital, the world competition evaluates startups from any segment around the world in regionals that culminate in a final in Silicon Valley, where the winner receives the prize of one million dollars and mentoring. This year, the judging panel chose TruckPad, a platform that facilitates the relationship between self-employed truck drivers and companies.
“We need to make it easier for more startups to be born with the aim of competing in international markets. In addition, we want entrepreneurs to learn about the programs and support that organizations present in the State of São Paulo can offer. In that sense, the event map SP Connect are available for our State to grow in the international rankings of the startup ecosystem”, said Franklin Ribeiro, Investment manager at Agência Paulista and manager of the Jaguaré Technological Park.
He also pointed out that the park's management is open to dialogue with the private sector to hold events at the site in partnership, in order to transform the space into an innovation hub and that they plan to take SP Conecta to other regions of the state of Sao Paulo. “We had some technology projects but, now, the approach to the startup ecosystem has expanded our connection with the technology and software sector. This move is very promising and SP Conecta will be on our 2018 calendar”, he concluded.
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