Live Web Summit Rio

At this year’s Web Summit Rio, the subject on everyone’s lips was the same: artificial intelligence. Countless entrepreneurs, innovators, and experts discussed the possibilities, limitations, and risks of AI, often exploring whether we should be optimistic about the new technology opportunities, or fearful.

During a panel at Web Summit Rio on that very topic, Sarah Al-Hussaini, co-founder and COO at AI customer support company Ultimate, said that both suppositions may be true. “[AI is the] future in the sense that I 100-percent believe that the majority of customer support will be provided by AI in the future. It will be instant, fun, easy, empowering, and efficient,” she said. “The fear is that it’s happening very quickly.”

Also taking part in the conference, moderated by The Brazilian Report‘s Gustavo Ribeiro, was Aline Oliveira, co-founder of financial platform Traive. “Eventually, I think what makes people afraid is also what can be solved,” she said.

Founded in 2009, Web Summit was held in Dublin until 2016, when it moved to Lisbon. The event helped turn the Portuguese capital into a European tech hub and “wants to do the same for Rio de Janeiro,” Artur Pereira, Web Summit’s country manager in Brazil, told our Deputy Editor Fabiane Ziolla Menezes. 

The Brazilian Report moderated another four panels at Web Summit Rio:

• How AI is going to give scale to your organization. With Bruno Guicardi, co-founder at CI&T, Alex Winetzki, founder & CEO at Woopi, and The Brazilian Report’s Deputy Editor Fabiane Ziolla Menezes. Watch here.
• How UFC fought its way to the top. Fred Santarpia, president of Endeavor Streaming, MMA fighter Amanda Ribas, Brazil UFC senior VP Eduardo Galetti, and The Brazilian Report’s Deputy Editor Euan Marshall.
• Can LatAm challenge Silicon Valley? Rodrigo Maroja, co-founder & COO of Daki, Ludmila Pontremolez, co-founder and CTO of Zippi, Brian Requarth, co-founder of Latitud, and Gustavo Ribeiro, founder and editor-in-chief of The Brazilian Report.
• Teqball. The next breakout Olympic sport? With Victor Huszar, co-founder of Teqball, Natália Guitler, Teqball world champion, and The Brazilian Report’s Euan Marshall. Watch here.

How does one invent a new sport in the 21st century? And how to get that sport into the Olympics? These were among the questions posed to Viktor Huszar, the founder of Teqball, during a panel discussion at Web Summit Rio 2023.

Speaking to The Brazilian Report‘s Euan Marshall and Teqball world champion Natália Guitler, Mr. Huszar explained that Teqball is the world’s fastest growing sport, thanks in no small part to its widespread adoption by professional footballers as a leisure activity or as a training drill.

“You can go to [Argentinian national team footballer Lionel] Messi’s Instagram page, he’s got a pinned story of him with his family playing Teqball. We have a sport that’s endorsed by the most influential people of the world for free,” said Mr. Huszar. “That’s my advice to everyone here: try to get that endorsement. If they look at it as a product, it’s not going to work. If it’s something they genuinely enjoy, it works.”

Natália Guitler, a former tennis pro and now a professional Teqball and footvolley player, spoke of her aspirations of representing Brazil at the Olympics in a potential future Teqball event.

“[Seeing Teqball in the Olympics] is a huge dream of mine — and I hope it will happen soon, so I will be able to take part. But anything I can do to help this sport grow, I’m there.”

Founded in 2009, Web Summit was held in Dublin until 2016, when it moved to Lisbon. The event helped turn the Portuguese capital into a European tech hub and “wants to do the same for Rio de Janeiro,” Artur Pereira, Web Summit’s country manager in Brazil, told our Deputy Editor Fabiane Ziolla Menezes. 

The Brazilian Report moderated another four panels at Web Summit Rio:

• How AI is going to give scale to your organization. With Bruno Guicardi, co-founder at CI&T, Alex Winetzki, founder & CEO at Woopi, and The Brazilian Report’s Deputy Editor Fabiane Ziolla Menezes. Watch here.
• AI: Future or fear? With Sarah Al-Hussaini, co-founder and COO at Ultimate, Aline Oliveira, co-founder of Traive, and Gustavo Ribeiro, editor-in-chief of The Brazilian Report.
• How UFC fought its way to the top. Fred Santarpia, president of Endeavor Streaming, MMA fighter Amanda Ribas, Brazil UFC senior VP Eduardo Galetti, and The Brazilian Report’s Deputy Editor Euan Marshall.
• Can LatAm challenge Silicon Valley? Rodrigo Maroja, co-founder & COO of Daki, Ludmila Pontremolez, co-founder and CTO of Zippi, Brian Requarth, co-founder of Latitud, and Gustavo Ribeiro, founder and editor-in-chief of The Brazilian Report.

Speaking on a Web Summit Rio panel about how to use artificial intelligence to scale organizations, the co-founder of information technology and software development company CI&T, Bruno Guicardi, said the need to apply ‘thinking’ systems to the company’s development process already shows AI’s “huge impact” on how digital services are being built.

“We are seeing productivity gains in the range of two to six times. And this is just the beginning. We can anticipate that AI has a huge impact on software development processes, doing it in a faster and cheaper way,” he said. 

The panel was moderated The Brazilian Report’s deputy editor Fabiane Ziolla Menezes, who questioned Mr. Guicardi about the practical use of generative artificial intelligence — or GenerativeAI — in his field. 

According to him, generative AI is changing how his company works, eliminating the necessity of “creating codes from scratch,” for example. “Developers increase their productivity by having their own ‘co-pilots’,” he said. 

Considering the challenges of AI implementation at scale, especially for corporate clients, Alex Winetzki, founder and CEO of Brazilian AI-focused platform Woopi, mentioned the possibility of using AI tools to search and summarize information for multiple uses, including helping courts organize lawsuits, assisting doctors during surgical procedures, and speeding up chatbots’ training.

“We do within hours things we once did in a day-long training. It’s a game-changing topic. In my career, I’ve never seen something with such an impact,” said the Woopi executive. 

Founded in 2009, the Web Summit was held in Dublin until 2016, when it moved to Lisbon. The event helped turn the Portuguese capital into a European tech hub and “wants to do the same for Rio de Janeiro,” Artur Pereira, Web Summit’s country manager in Brazil, told our Deputy Editor Fabiane Ziolla Menezes. 

The Brazilian Report will moderate another three panels in Rio, one of them also AI-related:

• AI: Future or fear? With Sarah Al-Hussaini, co-founder and COO at Ultimate, Aline Oliveira, co-founder of Traive, and Gustavo Ribeiro, editor-in-chief of The Brazilian Report (May 3, 4:40 pm-5 pm).
• How UFC fought its way to the top. Fred Santarpia, president of Endeavor Streaming, MMA fighter Amanda Ribas, Brazil UFC senior VP Eduardo Galetti, and The Brazilian Report’s Deputy Editor Euan Marshall (May 3, 4:35 pm-5 pm).
• Can LatAm challenge Silicon Valley? Rodrigo Maroja, co-founder & COO of Daki, Ludmila Pontremolez, co-founder and CTO of Zippi, Brian Requarth, co-founder of Latitud, and Gustavo Ribeiro, founder and editor-in-chief of The Brazilian Report (May 4, 1:05 pm-1:30 pm).

Just over a year after announcing Glauber Mota as head of its operations in Brazil, the British fintech Revolut is finally launching its app on a waiting list basis.

In an interview with The Brazilian Report at the Web Summit Rio, Mr. Mota (the former executive responsible for creating the digital banking arm of BTG Pactual, one of the leading investment banks in Brazil) did not disclose the number of customers interested in using Revolut but said that “thousands will gain access to the app every week” and that it might take some time to clear the waiting list.

With nearly 29 million customers across Europe, Australia, Singapore, and Japan, Revolut is taking its first step in Latin America. It is also exploring the Mexican market and targeting a more aggressive expansion in the U.S., but given the market size, Brazil will likely become one of the company’s primary operations.

With aspirations of becoming a super-app, Revolut offers a wide range of products and services worldwide. For its debut in Brazil, it chose to start with an offering that not all its competitors have: a multicurrency account and investments in crypto assets.  

“Brazilians are still relatively underserved in cross-border transactions, and we want to make this faster, simpler, and cheaper,” says Mr. Mota, adding that buying dollars through its app can be 3 to 10 percent cheaper than the traditional way, which is topping up an international debit card or using an international credit card. That is possible because the fintech spread is no more than 2 percent, and the conversion rate is the commercial dollar, not tourism.

Brazilian multi-currency accounts are limited to USD 27,000 monthly; a 0.5 percent fee will be charged above that.

Awaiting a direct credit society (SCD) license since last year, Revolut is debuting through alliances. It is using Bexs’ banking as a service infrastructure and offering its prepaid cards with a Visa flag — in the future, there will also be an agreement with Mastercard.

Once it receives the green light to operate as an SCD, Revolut will be able to expand its portfolio and offer a digital account with more payment and transfer options. 

Currently, users can make purchases through their prepaid card, Google Pay, Apple Pay, and PIX, Brazil’s instant payment system, in addition to making immediate transfers to other Revolut customers in 150 countries and converting the Brazilian real to U.S. dollars and then to another 27 currencies and 90 crypto tokens. 

“These functionalities are particularly interesting for people that travel a lot, work abroad, and receive payments in other currencies or even want to save money and have a small part of it in stronger currencies,” Mr. Mota says.

Revolut does not rule out the possibility that the group might also seek a DTVM license — as it is doing in Mexico — if it makes sense to expand the offer in the investment area. With an SCD authorization, companies may also enter the lending market. 

The current multi-currency account also has a savings function, which allows users to separate money for specific purposes, including those with contributions from other users. “When the person travels in a group, for example, we have a function to divide account amounts,” Mr. Mota explains.

Regarding crypto assets, Revolut’s app works almost like a mini “home broker,” with automatic purchase orders, recurring contributions, and other functions, as well as offering educational courses, with prizes for users completing steps and passing the tests. The reward will be in the form of the Polkadot token, but eventually, other crypto assets may be added. Brazil has more than 10 million individuals investing in crypto.

According to Mr. Mota, Revolut has about 50 employees in Brazil. More than half of them are dedicated to customer service; they were trained in the fintech’s global network, serving international customers in English, and will now serve Brazilians. 

“Our technology, design, and operations team also serves other regions. Brazilian professionals are attracting the company’s attention internally, and we decided to create a technology hub in Brazil to serve other countries in Latin America as the fintech expands,” says Mr. Mota.

Two experienced investors in Latin America, Mathias Schilling and Romero Rodrigues, took to the Venture Stage at the Web Summit Rio to pass on two basic messages to entrepreneurs: one, Brazil is the perfect place to start a global business; two, founders better get used to high capital costs because that is the new normal for venture capitalists and entrepreneurs.

Through their partnership with U.S.-based Redpoint Ventures in 2012, Messrs. Schilling and Rodrigues brought the first global fund to Brazil. They have invested in some of Latin America’s top tech companies since then, including Creditas, Gympass, Pismo, and Olist, to name but a few. 

Now, they are deploying from their third fund under a new brand, Headline Brazil, an early-stage firm with nearly BRL 1 billion (USD 199 million) in resources resulting from a partnership with San Francisco-based VC firm Headline, and XP Asset, the asset manager of Brazil’s largest independent brokerage.

“We believe that the best global companies could be created anywhere, as Silicon Valley today is much more an idea than a geographic center of innovation. In this sense, a business model that solves a pain point in Brazil and Latin America probably has everything it takes to succeed globally,” said Mr. Schilling.

“Brazil is a huge market on its own, with over 200 million people and a rising middle-class of young, tech-first consumers. At the same time, there are tons of problems to solve. For entrepreneurs, that is the perfect environment to create something amazing and expand globally,” Mr. Rodrigues added, emphasizing that startups in Brazil are no longer copycats of U.S.-based businesses, as was the case a few decades ago. 

“On top of that, Brazilian entrepreneurs know how to pivot faster and are keen on knowing their customers better than anyone. Over the last 25 years, I’ve noticed a mindset shift, with more entrepreneurs thinking globally, but this needs to happen more,” he said.

After praising the qualities of the local market, however, they said that Latin American entrepreneurs need to get used to working in a bear market.

“The [Covid] pandemic was an extreme period, with central banks pumping money, liquidity, into the markets, which always leads to speculation. Many markets have returned to normal, the old normal, and that’s what is happening in venture capital. We believe capital costs have grown by about ten times, and entrepreneurs should expect this new normal to go on for the next couple of years,” explained Mr. Schilling. 

In a subsequent panel, Laura Constantini, co-founder of Astella Investimentos (another Brazil-based early-stage VC firm), said she noticed valuations going down 30 to 40 percent in the last 18 months, while closing deals is taking much longer. 

“So, at this time, we advise founders when in talks with investors to show strong indications that they are truly able to raise money. In the past, founders would come to us knowing that it was not the right timing but that they were at a window of opportunity they couldn’t lose. It also might be a good moment to make partnerships and mergers,” Ms. Constantini said. 

“How are you going to protect something that you don’t know?” the 26-year-old indigenous activist Txai Suruí asked during a Q&A session at Web Summit Rio on Tuesday morning, urging attendees to visit the Amazon and learn about the traditional ways of indigenous communities. “The most powerful technology is ancestral knowledge,” she added.

Ms. Suruí spoke alongside Ricardo Lima, the Web Summit’s head of startups and investors, after participating in the summit’s opening ceremony on Monday night, where she shared the main stage with famous Brazilian TV host Luciano Huck.

A member of the Suruí Paiter indigenous community, hailing from the Sete de Setembro protected land in the northern Brazilian state of Rondônia, Txai Suruí is one of the leading voices in defense of the country’s indigenous communities. In 2021, she made history when she became the first indigenous person to speak at the opening ceremony of a climate conference, issuing the opening address at COP26 in Glasgow, Scotland.

At one of the world’s largest tech events, Ms. Suruí stressed that the people living in Brazil’s forests are also involved with technology and complained of the lack of space offered to indigenous communities in these spheres.

Ms. Suruí gave the example of her father, a leader in the Sete de Setembro indigenous land. “Back in 2005, he went to California and knocked on Google’s door, and told them, ‘you have the technology but you know nothing about the forest and its people.'”

“We are working with technology in the forest, but no one wants to listen to us. You want to save the Amazon? Well, come and talk to us!” she said.

“I’m looking around at all these people here, and if I hadn’t brought my boyfriend I’d be the only indigenous person here,” she noted. Nodding in agreement, Mr. Lima promised that next year’s edition of the conference would include more indigenous speakers.

Web Summit Rio hit full capacity on Tuesday, with a total of 21,367 attendees from 91 countries. This is the first edition of the globally renowned tech summit to be held outside of Europe, having been hosted in Dublin and Lisbon since its inception. The Brazilian Report is in attendance at the event, hosting a series of panels throughout the week.

At the beginning of its first full day of events, Web Summit Rio officially reached full capacity with a total of 21,367 attendees from 91 countries.

This is the first edition of the globally renowned tech summit to be held outside of Europe, having been hosted in Dublin and Lisbon since its inception. Web Summit will hold a further five editions in Rio de Janeiro.

“To have such a strong international presence at a first-year event is something extraordinary,” said Paddy Cosgrove, Web Summit founder and CEO. “We cannot wait to see how we can grow over the next three years, and beyond.”

Web Summit Rio was already breaking records before it began, selling out four weeks prior. Initial estimates for attendees stood at 5,000 tech entrepreneurs and investors, but this was slowly increased until reaching 21,367.

A total of 974 startups are exhibiting at the four-day event, representing 28 industries. Beyond that, there are 400 speakers in total, including The Brazilian Report’s staff.

The event’s organizers revealed that 40 percent of attendees are women, 37 percent of speakers are women, and 209 exhibiting startups are women-founded. Web Summit Rio offered discounted tickets to women connected to the tech industry, which also sold out in record time.

Tuesday’s events got underway with a panel featuring Nym security consultant Chelsea Manning, who discussed “the next decade of the internet,” highlighting the connections between AI, encryption, and data privacy.

Speaking at the opening ceremony of Web Summit Rio, Mayor Eduardo Paes made bold pledges to transform Brazil’s picture-perfect tourism capital Rio de Janeiro into the country’s most dynamic hub for innovation.

“We have a plan for Rio, and Web Summit is part of that plan,” Mr. Paes said, adding that there will be at least six editions of one of the world’s biggest tech events in Brazil’s “Wonderful City.” Mr. Paes said that local authorities will cut down red tape in order to make it possible for anyone to set up a business within just a minute.

The mayor noted that attracting Web Summit to Rio de Janeiro forms an “important pillar” in his plan to transform the city into Brazil’s tech capital, and urged business owners from around the world to set up shop in the city.

“Rio is about quality of life. And quality of life is key to attracting and retaining talent,” Mr. Paes said. “Imagine having a dip in the sea at the feet of Christ the Redeemer before starting your daily work?”

Web Summit Rio kicked off today at the Riocentro convention center, running throughout the week until May 4. There will be over 100 hours of talks, masterclasses, and networking sessions. 

Founded in 2009, the Web Summit was held in Dublin until 2016, when it moved to Lisbon. The event helped turn the Portuguese capital into a European tech hub and “wants to do the same for Rio de Janeiro,” Artur Pereira, Web Summit’s country manager in Brazil, tells The Brazilian Report’s Fabiane Ziolla Menezes. 

The Brazilian Report will moderate four panels in Rio:

• How AI is going to scale your organization. With Bruno Guicardi, co-founder of digital transformation firm CI&T; Alex Winetzki, founder and CEO of Brazilian AI-focused platform Woopi, and The Brazilian Report‘s Deputy Editor Fabiane Ziolla Menezes. (May 2, 11:45 am-12:05 pm)
• AI: Future or fear? With Sarah Al-Hussaini, co-founder and COO at Ultimate, Aline Oliveira, co-founder of Traive, and Gustavo Ribeiro, editor-in-chief of The Brazilian Report. (May 3, 4:40 pm-5 pm)
• How UFC fought its way to the top. Fred Santarpia, president of Endeavor Streaming, MMA fighter Amanda Ribas, Brazil UFC senior VP Eduardo Galetti, and The Brazilian Report’s Deputy Editor Euan Marshall. (May 3, 4:35 pm-5 pm)
• Can LatAm challenge Silicon Valley? Rodrigo Maroja, co-founder & COO of Daki, Ludmila Pontremolez, co-founder and CTO of Zippi, Brian Requarth, co-founder of Latitud, Gustavo Ribeiro, founder and editor-in-chief of The Brazilian Report. (May 4, 1:05 pm-1:30 pm)