Brazilian tech firms look for opportunities in China and Shanghai
Brazilian tech startups hope to seek business opportunities in China as Brazil’s biggest export market, with huge user base, wide-range applications covering AI and IoT and huge volume of capital and booming investment opportunities, Shanghai Daily learned on Thursday.
As part of the StartOut Brazil Program, 15 Brazilian tech startups came to Shanghai to establish connections with Chinese investors, companies and entrepreneurs. They attended the roadshow event held in the Shanghai Pudong Software Park, introducing their products and services including easy methods to diagnose Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD) with artificial intelligence; hologram projectors that generate virtual images around real objects and industrial 4.0 systems for various companies.
Between 2003 and 2018, China invested US$54.1 billion in projects in Brazil, according to data from the National Association of Entities Promoting Innovative Enterprises (Anprotec). Many Chinese firms including Tencent and Baidu have invested in tech industry in Brazil.
Brazilian Consul-General in Shanghai Gilberto Fonseca Guimaraes de Moura, who also attended the local event, said China is “the future.”
China has huge user base of smartphone and Internet, with applications owning 100 million or more users, making it a market with huge potential for Brazilian firms, said Carlos Pan, Asia region manager of ApexBrasil or the Brazilian Trade and Investment Promotion Agency. The organization works to promote Brazilian products and services abroad and to attract foreign investment to Brazil.
As one of those startups, Cognisigns aims to eradicate the late diagnosis of ASD in the world, by democratizing access to screening and treatment. The V.E.R.A. (Virtual Empathic Robot Assistant) is an online prediagnosis that is based on neuroscience and AI, endowed with chatbots, eye tracking, facial expression recognition and behavior reactions to help parents and health professionals identify possible ASD signs in children and adults.
Early diagnosis is essential to ASD. The company hopes to build a database with 10 million ASD patients in China, with “B2B/G” (business to business and government) models, said Andressa Roveda, co-founder of Cognisigns.
Another startup GoEPIK offers flexible and customizable industry 4.0 platform, which helps companies to speed up digital transformation experiences. The company is in negotiation with “Chinese hardware partners” for further cooperation, the company said in Shanghai.
For Chinese investors, Latin America is a promising market with big potential. The venture capital firms are closely watching investment opportunities there, said Ted Sun, associate of the Chenhui Venture Partners, who attended the roadshow event.
Besides Shanghai, those companies will visit Hangzhou and Hong Kong in China, said Pan.
Shanghai is unique to the startups as it’s one of the top 10 global innovation ecosystems. Today, the financial capital and cradle of China's fintech has more than 2,500 startups and several accelerators and incubators supported by government funds, Pan added.