How Rio de Janeiro brought Web Summit to Brazil

About BRL 30 million (USD 6 million) disbursed by private companies and non-profitable institutions is how Rio de Janeiro got to host the first Web Summit outside of Europe in 2023 — and will remain host for the next five years. 

The amount is practically half of what the Portuguese government agreed to pay (USD 12.8 million) per year back in 2018, when the main event moved from Dublin to Lisbon, setting a ten-year commitment to the city. The event helped turn the Portuguese capital into a European tech hub and “wants to do the same for Rio de Janeiro,” according to Artur Pereira, country manager for Web Summit in Brazil.

Since Lisbon started hosting the event, the flow of venture capital to Portuguese startups increased twenty-fold, from an annual average of EUR 30 million between 2010 and 2015 to EUR 500 million (USD 572.7 million) in 2018 and EUR 1.5 billion in 2021. Investment dropped in 2022 to EUR 710 million due to the current lower level of global liquidity.

The main partners of Web Summit Rio were Latin America’s largest corporate investment bank, Itaú BBA, blockchain company Transfero, and Senac-RJ, a local institution that provides professional education focused on the trade of goods, services, and tourism. Senac-RJ is linked to Fecomércio-RJ, Rio de Janeiro’s state trade federation.

Antonio Florencio de Queiroz Junior, chair of Fecomércio-RJ and this year’s ambassador for Web Summit Rio, tells The Brazilian Report that Senac-RJ committed up to BRL 20 million to Invest.Rio, the city’s innovation agency. 

“But Senac-RJ did not reach this limit because Fecomércio-RJ itself, in addition to Sebrae [another organization focused on fostering micro and small businesses] also paid part of the hosting rights, in addition to the private companies,” said Mr. Queiroz. 

Senac-RJ has committed to an investment of BRL 18 million with Invest.Rio, encompassing not only Web Summit but also future projects aimed at fostering innovation.

The local administration estimates that the event will generate BRL 1.2 billion for the local market over its six editions — almost a third of what Carnival moves annually. This year alone, it expects visitors to have spent BRL 66.9 million in the city.

“The most important thing, however, is the strategic quality of the public that the conference will bring to Rio. The world already sees Rio as a leisure destination; it will start to see it as a key place to do business, too,” says Chicão Bulhões, Rio’s municipal secretary of economic development and innovation.

Itaú BBA declined to inform how much it invested in Web Summit. We couldn’t locate Transfero’s communications team. 

Web Summit as part of a broader plan

Bringing Web Summit to Rio is part of Mayor Eduardo Paes’ larger agenda aiming to transform Brazil’s tourism capital into its tech capital, too. A vital part of this plan is a project called “Porto Maravalley” (a portmanteau of Porto Maravilha, Rio’s former dock region that is being revitalized, and Silicon Valley).

Since November 2022, the municipal government has invested nearly BRL 40 million in the renovation of a set of old warehouses in Porto Maravilha, turning them into a 10,000 square meters technology center capable of housing up to 400 startups. 

The Institute of Pure and Applied Mathematics, a research and education organization linked to the Science and Technology Ministry, plans to occupy half of the Porto Maravalley and launch its first free higher education course, which will be offered to students from other states and regions of the country who perform well in the Brazilian Mathematics Olympiad.

This old port region of Rio and the city center have new urban rules that allow the construction of taller and mixed buildings, mixing commercial and residential functions, as a way to revitalize the area. That, combined with Porto Maravalley, should attract at least 13,000 residents. 

On top of that, tech companies wanting to set up shop in Porto Maravilha will pay a lower rate for the municipal tax on services — 2 percent instead of 5 percent. 

The city expects the work to be concluded and the project to be launched in the second half of this year.

On Thursday, the last day of Web Summit Rio, Mr. Paes said at a press conference that the city will launch public investment in the coming days to directly foster local startups and tech companies.

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