Corporate Venture in Brazil 2025: AI Dominance and the Race for Competitive Advantage

In the “Fund Manager Showcase Session“, Piero Minardi of ABVCAP spotlighted two standout cases: Azos and Tractian. Azos, an insurtech seeking to democratize life insurance, received investment from Munich Re — the global giant’s first in Latin America — under a CVC model that granted full autonomy to the founders. According to Rafael Cló, Co-Founder and CEO, the partnership delivered not only capital and credibility, but also technical access and international validation, accelerating growth and inspiring new product formats already attracting attention in the U.S. market.

Leonardo Scopel, Director of Sales at deep tech firm Tractian, described how backing from CVCs such as Siemens (Next47) and SAP (Sapphire) validated the technical superiority of their solution, which combines proprietary hardware with cutting-edge software. The investment model — featuring independent governance and a focus on strategic collaboration — ensured the startup’s freedom while opening doors for international expansion. Tractian, alongside Azos, represents a new generation of Brazilian startups that not only attract the attention of global investors but export technology and challenge sector boundaries.

The panel “Lessons from the 2024 Champions“, moderated by Jaime Frenkel of EloGroup, brought together leading names in Brazilian CVC behind cases that defined the previous year. Thiago Iglesias (Torq/Evertec), Juliana Sarilio (BB Ventures), and Leonardo Peters (Unifique Tech Ventures) shared their views on how corporate startup investment is evolving in Brazil — and, more importantly, what distinguishes initiatives that generate real value and consistent results. The common thread: the importance of a more strategic CVC, fully integrated with the core business, capable of looking beyond short-term horizons and immediate profitability.

The Torq/Evertec case, awarded in the Largest Exit category in 2024, demonstrated how the right investment at the right time can maximize returns and accelerate transformation. The sale of Celcoin, a Torq portfolio company, embodied the value of CVC under Evertec’s new leadership. According to Iglesias, investing at more advanced stages — such as Series B — increased the likelihood of capturing financial value, but the most significant gain came from CVC’s ability to open pathways to innovations that would have been difficult to achieve through M&A or traditional R&D alone.

BB Ventures, winner in the Largest Investment category, saw Juliana Sarilio highlight the combination of financial and strategic levers as a success factor. The year’s largest investment, in startup Triving, originated from a proof of concept (PoC) and resulted in tangible synergies — including the launch of BB Expenses, a product that connects the bank, the corporate client, and the startup in a virtuous cycle of innovation and efficiency.

Unifique Tech Ventures, named Most Active CVC of 2024, brought a distinct yet equally powerful perspective: capital is only part of the value delivered to a startup. For Leonardo Peters, the true differentiator lies in the synergy created between the corporate investor and the ecosystem — something Unifique has leveraged through a diversification strategy spanning healthcare, finance, and even the pet market, backed by a base of over 1.3 million customers.

Looking ahead, last year’s winners signaled ambitious moves. Torq is preparing its international expansion via ZFlow, while Unifique is pursuing theses in smart cities and Industry 4.0, projecting 2026 as the year to harvest the fruits of its efforts.

Diego Barreto, CEO of iFood, delivered the event’s first keynote, detailing the company’s evolution from food delivery into a logistics and cross-vertical commerce ecosystem. According to the executive, the strategy centers on leveraging the high frequency of food orders — an opportunity of 90 touchpoints per month, considering three meals a day — to build logistic density that enables expansion into new verticals (grocery, pharmacy).

iFood’s CVC is a clear example of a purely strategic model, where the rationale is not the individual financial return on the asset, but rather ensuring ecosystem integration and fostering strong relationships with all stakeholders. The primary value for the invested startup is the opportunity to benefit from this ecosystem. The company emphasizes that innovation “is not about structure — it’s about culture,” prioritizing clear communication of strategic priorities.

On the second day, the keynote from a tech giant sounded the alarm for the next technological revolution: quantum computing. Alexandre Pfeifer, Quantum Sales Leader at IBM, explained that while Artificial Intelligence dominates the present, quantum computing will solve “hard” problems that are intractable for digital and classical computing — such as breaking cryptographic protocols or optimizing fluid dynamics.

According to IBM’s quantum roadmap, the technology’s evolution is divided into eras: quantum utility (since 2023), where running quantum algorithms on quantum hardware already outperforms classical simulations; quantum advantage (from 2026), which will mark the ability to achieve tasks better, faster, or more cheaply on a quantum computer; and fault-tolerant systems (from 2029), where the delivery of large-scale quantum computers will enable a 1,000x leap in operational capacity.

Pfeifer noted that the potential value of quantum computing is estimated at US$500 billion. The critical message: 90% of that value will be captured by those who prepare now, given the steep learning curve. HSBC has already achieved a 34% increase in the accuracy of trade-closing predictions in the European fixed-income market using quantum computing. The inclusion of quantum computing in the discussions reinforced that CVCs are not merely reacting to current trends, but positioning themselves to capture H3 disruptions.