IBM brings program of support to new businesses to Brazil
Valor Econômico
The routine of Marcelo Sena and his four partners went through a revolution in the beginning of the year. Usix - a company created by a group of friends with the purpose of producing software for insurance companies - received an investment, whose amount was not disclosed, from the Criatec fund (a Seed Capital Investment Fund). And, together, it underwent a transformation in the management procedures of the small company headquartered in Fortaleza. The results are already making the businessman dream higher. Sena wants to increase the commercial partnerships of the company, strengthen the businesses and, in some years, have Usix go public.
It was IBM that intermediated the negotiations between Usix and the Criatec - fund with funds from the BNDES (National Development Bank) managed by Antera Gestão de Recursos (an asset management company). The American company had Usix on its partners list, bet on the potential of the company and helped it find an investor. That is a role IBM intends to perform more and more frequently in the Brazilian market. Today the company holds the first edition of the IBM Venture Capital Forum in the country. The goal is to get new risk capital funds - which are willing to make investments in new companies - and universities and technology developers closer.
"Two years ago we started getting closer to the local market. Now, we are going to make the launching of this IBM community official", affirms Claudia Munce, International Vice-President of the IBM Venture Capital Group - the division of the American company whose purpose is exactly to prospect for new technologies and new partners. IBM does not use its own funds in new companies it considers promising, it seeks to introduce them to investors, though. According to the officer, nearly 120 innovative companies that interest IBM have already been identified in the country.
An innovation center which IBM inaugurated in São Paulo this year will give support to the initiatives. "The center shows we are committed to the local market", emphasizes the officer. IBM maps the market with the assistance of risk capital funds, but it also keeps an eye on the universities and on its own portfolio of business partners. "The Brazilian market is becoming mature. We would not be here if we did not see a great potential", she says.