Companies were chosen from 1,366 projects
Twenty-five startups (emerging companies) will receive free financial support from the National Bank for Economic and Social Development (BNDES) to leverage their ventures. The announcement was made today (27), in Rio de Janeiro, by the bank, in partnership with the AWL consortium (Artemisia, Wayra and Liga Ventures).
The 25 companies were selected from among 1,366 enterprises that enrolled in the BNDES Garage Program – Impact Businesses, whose objective is to contribute to the creation and acceleration of solutions with social or environmental impact, stimulating entrepreneurship and developing companies that produce returns with a positive impact on society and the market.
The director of Participations, Capital Markets and Indirect Credit at the BNDES, Bruno Laskowski, stated that the initial objectives of the program were achieved, highlighting the large number of applications and the multiplicity of the solutions presented.
“We will have 25 startups being accelerated in all verticals prioritized for the first cycle: sustainability, health, education, sustainable cities and govtech. These are businesses from all regions of Brazil that bring solutions to social, environmental and productivity challenges, stimulating the entrepreneurial ecosystem in the country and positively transforming the lives of Brazilians in the last mile”, he explained.
AWL Consortium Team Leader Felipe Alves noted that the team took an intentional look at diversity. Within the selected group, around 40% of the businesses have women as leaders and 27% have self-declared black leaders, he pointed out.
“We also noticed an interesting degree of maturity of impact startups, with many of them in the traction and scale stages”, he said. He added that, among the selected emerging companies, the presence of govtechs stands out, which are startups that have governments as clients as part of their business model. “A differential of the program is precisely being able to support startups that want to generate impact via the public sector as well”, he declared.
Traction
The 25 emerging companies selected will participate in the traction stage, aimed at entrepreneurs with a product already created, but who are looking for support to take the next steps and grow. For four months, they will receive support from the BNDES, the AWL Consortium and market partners, to stimulate their growth and, also, for possible business and investments.
Of a total of 1,366 projects, 600 signed up for this stage. The remaining 766 participants signed up for the creation stage, which will support up to 20 businesses.
Also according to BNDES, those selected will receive all the support necessary to develop the Minimum Viable Product (MVP), validate the solution in the market, launch the startup and win over the first customers.
The announcement of those selected for this internship is scheduled for October. See the 25 selected companies in link.
Source: Portal ABES with Agência Brasil
