São Paulo: Latin America’s Tech Giant
With over 36 million inhabitants in its extended urban area, São Paulo is not just Brazil’s most populous city, it’s one of the largest in the world. This sprawling metropolis is the financial heart of the country. It has also become one of the world’s most exciting tech hubs.
Four of Brazil’s unicorns (99, Nubank, PagSeguro and TOTVS) are headquartered in São Paulo, where a bustling ecosystem of startups and entrepreneurs are utilising the city’s massive local market and financial clout.
We’ve taken a look at everything that goes into making São Paulo one of Latin America’s most attractive destinations for tech.
Economic Powerhouse
The State of São Paulo has a GDP bigger than Argentina, Chile, Paraguay, Uruguay and Bolivia combined. Naturally, the city of São Paulo acts as the epicentre for all of this. The Brazilian Stock Exchange is located here, as well as a multitude of banks and investment firms. Sequoia and Flybridge chose São Paulo as their gateway into Latin America, while other firms like Redpoint eVentures and Kaszek Ventures also have offices here. As a result, São Paulo has become the 10th richest city in the world.
Naturally, large international brands have also moved their base of operations to São Paulo. 63% of businesses that operate in Brazil have their headquarters here. This include Netflix, who base their entire Latin American operation from offices in the city’s financial district.
Perfect for Startups
São Paulo boasts upwards of 2700 active tech startups, making it the most mature ecosystem in all of Latin America. This is boosted by key investment and active nurturing by established tech figureheads — Google’s São Paulo Campus offers startups a coworking space, new venture accelerator and networking opportunities, designed to drive rapid growth and development.
Google isn’t the only source of assistance for the startup community either. In 2015 the city government of São Paulo set up the SP Stars incubator program, which selects technology-based startups and provides them with mentoring and support from companies such as LinkedIn and Cabify.
Tech Event Hotspot
The presence of major international tech companies in São Paulo, along with a diverse startup ecosystem, has contributed to the city also acting as a focal point for tech events. São Paulo Tech Week is an annual innovation and technology festival that brings together major companies, universities, startups and investors in a diverse program of presentations, workshops, demonstrations and discussion panels. Events are spread throughout the city, creating opportunities for engagement from the city’s professional and consumer demographics.
São Paulo was also chosen as the destination for the first ever TNW Latin America Conference in 2012. Along with keynote speeches from Amazon CTO Werner Vogels and Ryan Holiday, more than $7 million of funding for businesses and entrepreneurs was raised at or immediately after the event.
Smart City Projects
According to the Connected Smart Cities Conference 2017, São Paulo is the most connected city in the country, boasting various innovative schemes designed to modernise public infrastructure.
São Paulo’s huge population and sprawling nature presents a traditional challenge to public service infrastructure. With 13 lines and an extension of around 363 km, the São Paulo Metropolitan Transport Network is the largest public transport system in all of Latin America. ViaQuatro is the only private company to operate a line on the system. It has partnered with British firm iSensing to install an IoT sensor array throughout the network that provides real time and historical passenger data. This will be used to measure usage trends and help form plans for effective line expansion. iSensing aims to install more IoT sensors around São Paulo for other infrastructure optimisation and expansion plans.
In 2017, the Mayor of São Paulo at the time, João Doria Jr, also laid out plans to develop further smart city initiatives and infrastructure. A large part of this focused on the drive to reduce bureaucracy, achievable in part by digitising public services. Another step included a plan to roll out a complex system of 10,000 surveillance cameras, powered by the Microsoft monitoring system Detecta, along with the use of surveillance drones in high crime areas. The city’s school system was earmarked as another area for smart city investment, with general plans to modernise classrooms with connected devices.
The potential for massive tech innovation and adoption throughout the diverse continent of South America makes it an obvious choice for a Primalbase office. Where would you like to see us open up one of our shared workspaces for the tech community next? We want you to have your say. Nominate the city you think we should launch in next here.
