DGF Investimentos made an undisclosed investment in Brazilian edtech startup Mosyle, which will be used to establish operations in the U.S.
(Press Release) The new wave of Brazilian startups are going global. Mosyle, a Brazilian startup, raises capital and establishes operations in the U.S.
June 1st, 2017-Despite the country’s political instability, Brazilian high-tech startups are attracting investments and expanding beyond geographical borders. Among the country’s new crop of entrepreneurs, many are launching their technology companies with a global mindset, and some are successfully expanding beyond Brazil’s borders.
An example of this trend is Mosyle (http://manager.mosyle.com/), a Brazilian EdTech startup that enables the use of mobile devices and laptops inside classrooms. The company first developed a cross-platform mobile-first Learning Management System (LMS), integrated with an education-only Mobile Device Management (MDM) software. After dominating the local market, the founder Alcyr Araujo decided to redirect all of Mosyle’s attention to the larger and more competitive U.S. market.
“From day one we envisioned entering the US market, so we prepared a solid foundation to expand and compete on the next level”, says Araujo. The company recently came out of “stealth mode” and announced an investment by DGF Investimentos, a top Brazilian Venture Capital firm. The capital made it possible for the company to establish operations in the US and acquire its first customers. Part of the strategy included the spin-off of the LMS unit, which was sold to a leading Brazilian educational system, allowing Mosyle to focus exclusively on its MDM offering. After one year of high growth in the US, the company secured over 2,000 schools as customers, including large and reputable school districts, with almost 1 million devices Currently, its education-only MDM called Mosyle Manager manages more than 200,000 devices daily. The remarkable results and quality of the solution earned Mosyle the status of one of the most recommended solutions to manage Apple devices running iOS and MacOS, worldwide.
“Brazilian tech entrepreneurs have finally understood that they have the talent to compete at a global level, and what they need to reach world-class status.”
Another example of a Brazil-based startup going global is GymPass, a platform that enables users to access a network of gyms, and that today can be used in over 10 countries in Latin America and Europe. Both companies represent this new generation of global thinking entrepreneurs. “It is fully expected that we will continue to see this movement with more Brazilian companies expanding internationally”, says Patrick Arippol, Managing Director at DGF Investimentos. “Brazilian tech entrepreneurs have finally understood that they have the talent to compete at a global level, and what they need to reach world-class status.”
The trend taking ahold of Brazil currently mirrors that which took place in Israel years ago. Differently, though, many Brazilian entrepreneurs still remain focused on its large domestic market. Yet top entrepreneurs now see the world as their limit, with the benefit of having a sizeable domestic market to start testing their solutions with some scale, as Gympass and Mosyle did initially. “Wherever you are in the world, do expect to hear more about Brazilian tech companies in the next decade,” says Arippol.