Why you should launch your startup in São Paulo

Brazil, we can find great opportunities and an attractive market. It may be the good moment to start to undertake on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean!

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Why launching your start-up in São Paulo?

The city of São Paulo, considered as the Latin America financial heart, has recently lost its place (as well as Moscow and Montreal) in the ranking made by Startup Genome of the 20 cities offering the best ecosystem for startups.

The study on which leans the document Global Startup Ecosystem Report 2017, produces in partnership with GEN, Crunchbase and Orb Intelligence. It has analysed several cities, thanks to 5 criteria: funding performance and returns, quality of the financial market in venture capital, quality and cost of professionals, local market attractiveness and its opening to international markets, startup experience. According to these criteria, São Paulo continues been at the best place in Latin America with a 20-million consumers market and great successes, such as Loggi, platform of delivery of the French Fabien Mendez, or VivaReal, selling of homestays created by the American Brian Requarth, and who raised US$75 million.

Here are some good reasons to invest in São Paulo:

Talented professionals ready to sustain your company

São Paul region has the best universities in Brasil, like the University of São Paulo (USP) and the University of Campinas (UNICAMP). Thanks to a growing market of startups in the region, the majority of local universities gives dedicated trainings and incubations. Thus you will be able to find qualified professionals in various fields (engineers, administrators, lawyers, technicians) for lower wages than in Europe and North America.

An entrance gate on the Brazilian and South American markets

Beyond a population of more than 20 million inhabitants and its high buying power (11% of the Brazilian GDP is located in the city of São Paulo), São Paulo has high-quality infrastructures which will allow you to easily reach Brazilian and South American consumers : Santos harbour, Guarulhos airport and roads going to the whole country and neighbouring countries such as Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay.

An ideal market for innovative companies

You will benefit from a large community of entrepreneurs, which will allow you to exchange solutions and develop your activity in Brazil. Moreover the local capital-risk market dynamism offers good sources of funding : lots of local and foreign investors are in São Paulo (Digital Factory, 500 Startups, Red Point Ventures…).

Some pieces of advice to succeed in Brazil

• Do market studies of you products/services in the region you plan to undertake;

• Find an associate who will introduce you to the specificities of the market;

• Work with lawyers in aim at being informed as much as possible about the norms, especially fiscal and social-wise;

• Be flexible and persevering: to undertake in Brazil is a challenge but you will not regret it!