Unicamp Ecosystem: Overview

Several Venture Capitalists (VCs) from Silicon Valley claim that most of their return on investments occurs in a radius of approximately 50 miles around Stanford, where one can find the most exciting and active innovation ecosystem in the world. Similarly, the area around Unicamp (State University of Campinas) in São Paulo State/Brazil has been increasingly becoming a complex and rich innovation ecosystem.

This technological and innovation ecosystem started to be built decades ago, transforming this area in a traditional technology hub in the country. But, in the last months the ecosystem started to evolve faster and faster in a synchronized movement, involving the most different and complementary players.

Some of the elements compounding this emerging ecosystem are listed below.

•  Unicamp: it is the top ranked university in Brazil for technology and biotech and the second in the overall ranking, with more than 20,000 active students.

•  Inova Unicamp: Unicamp’s Innovation Agency is in charge of the intellectual property subject matters, technology transfer, relationship with tech parks and incubators and has been playing a central role supporting and fomenting the several initiatives and players of the whole innovation ecosystem.

• Unicamp Ventures (UV): is a collaborative network involving entrepreneurs related to the university and supported by Inova Unicamp. Among other activities, UV and IVP launched a Startup Mentoring Program that will support more than 50 selected startups throughout 2011.

• Inova Venture Participações/Partners (IVP):  formed by more than 50 the Unicamp Ventures members, IVP is a holding created to invest in high potential startups preferably from the Unicamp ecosystem, accelerating their development not just through the funding but also taking advantage of the experience, networking, management skills and internationalization experience of the more experienced entrepreneurs and investors.

• Hundreds of tech and biotech companies derived from the university from startups to global companies with more than R$100mi of revenue (Ci&T, Movile, Coffee Bean Technology, Icaro, Dextra, Mobwise, I-Systems, Gentros, ClanSoft, LedFace, C2C and much more) besides several huge multinational installed in the region attracted by the technology excellence of the ecosystem (IBM, Dell, Motorola, Samsung, Siemens, Lenovo, Bosch, Foxconn, etc.).

• Several R&D institutes providing technology, support and expertise to the market for high tech, biotech, agribusiness, telecom, etc. CPqD, Instituto Eldorado, Venturus, CTI and Embrapa are some examples. The Fundação Forum Campinas (FFC) involves the R&D institutes and universities and articulates actions to promote the social and economic development through science, technology and innovation.

• CNPEM/ABTLuS:  is the National Center for Research in Energy and Materials (CNPEM). The CNPEM is managed by the Brazilian Association for Synchrotron Light Technology (ABTLuS) through management contracts with the Ministry of Science and Technology (MCT). Located in a 216,12 sq miles area, this center is formed by 4 highly specialized laboratories:
  • LNLS: the National Laboratory of Synchrotron Light was the first lab in this complex, opened in 1997. It is the only synchrotron light source throughout Latin America and was designed and built by the Brazilian scientific community. A new and more powerful synchrotron light source (Sirius) is coming soon.

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  • LNBio: the National Laboratory of Biosciences conducts research, development and innovation in bioscience.
  •  CTBE: the National Laboratory of Bioethanol seeks answers to the challenges of science and technology throughout the chain of bioethanol.
  •  LNNano (new): the National Laboratory of Nanotechnology offers to the academic community and companies state of the art instruments to study advanced materials.

• SOFTEX Campinas: is a Civil Society Organization of Public Interest (OSCIP) that participates in the joint effort of the SOFTEX community to fix the brand Brazil-IT+, to contribute to the excellence of the Brazilian software industry and to the consolidation of Campinas and region as a center of high technology. The institution offers specialized services to enable resources and incentives for businesses in the city and region grow and become competitive, reduce costs and generate skilled jobs. These services are performed by 6 verticals: Empowerment, Entrepreneurship, Excellence, Exports, Funding and Quality.

• Incubators: there are three incubators supported by the university whose business models and strategies to support and mentor startups are being reviewed.
  • Incamp : is the Unicamp’s incubator for technology based startups.
  • Softex Incubator: is the SOFTEX Campinas’ incubator and is focused in Information and Communication Technology startups.
  • Ciatec : is a technology based startups incubator in charge of two High Technology Centers in Campinas area.

• Campinas Startups (CS): is a pioneer institution in Brazil launched by the Campinas Metropolitan Area startups to promote the networking among the members, strengthen their businesses and relevance in the market, besides to contribute to the several initiatives of the innovation ecosystem.

• Besides some smaller universities, there are more two private universities in Campinas highly recognized by their excellence for Law and Business School, Marketing and Technology as well: PUCCAMP and FACAMP.

All the above mentioned players are working together to develop and foment the entrepreneurship, innovation e relevance of the Unicamp Ecosystem. In the What’s Hot section you can find all the information about the events, courses, investments and networking activities of this community.

Comments

[Joao S. O.Bueno]

Of course, it would be much better if any responsible from Unicamp would reopen the gate on the campus leading straight to LNLS and inovation parks on the Telebras Road - a single gate that was closed years ago with he sole purpose of needing one or two less security guards in the back of the campus increases the driving (and walking) distance to several key high technology partners from 2Km to over 10Km.