Guy Perelmuter, manager of GRIDS Capital, the most traditional deep tech fund of funds in Brazil, sums up the spirit of venture capital in one sentence: "Deep Tech is the only place where financial return and civilizational impact go hand in hand."
The phrase is apt because it's accurate. A country that lacks incentives for its universities to become "incubators of business" that leverage its natural assets loses simultaneously in several dimensions: it loses money, talent, and future. Brazil is losing in all of them.
This month I was in Zurich with several biotech entrepreneurs. Among various topics, they were celebrating the IPO of an oncology company, whose founder told me: "Now I'm going to seek US$2 billion to start a new business. I want to solve a problem considered impossible, because only then will I pursue a moonshot."
I recognized in his gaze the power of humanity's ability to find solutions. I experienced this spirit at the dawn of the internet in the 1990s, when it seemed that "everything solid melted into air," and phenomena like Mercado Libre and Amazon emerged, just to mention the segment in which I operated. This is the "spirit" that inhabits the technology hubs of the most developed countries.
In a decade, the percentage of global venture capital invested in Deep Tech – companies that work with “cutting-edge” scientific technologies – has increased from 10% to 20% of the total volume of resources. In 2021, US$160 billion entered the sector, which is projected to attract trillions of dollars by 2030, according to analysts.
There is a technological race underway, and three poles are leading it: the USA, with DARPA, MIT, and others; China, with state capital and industrial speed; and Europe, trying to "stay in the game," with its own regulations coupled with its research institutions.
This technological race is no longer exclusive to private venture capital and has reached the publicly traded company market. In 2026, in the challenging US public or SPAC market, the topics that generate the most interest include "Deep Techs" in defense, batteries, biotech, and space exploration, even if the companies are in very early stages of operation.
Brazil is home to approximately 20% of all known species on the planet. Together, the Amazon and Cerrado biomes hold the world's largest repository of bioactive compounds, with direct applications in biotech, pharmacology, new materials, and agricultural pesticides. Adding to this picture, the Brazilian subsoil contains the second largest reserve of rare earth elements on the planet, a critical material for next-generation batteries and superconductors.
While Brazil debates regulatory frameworks, other countries are acting quickly. China, over the last 15 years, has structured systematic policies that allow it to transform biodiversity into intellectual property, with bioprospecting integrated into the industrial agenda.
Brazil approved Law 13.123/2015 with the aim of regulating access to genetic resources. However, bureaucracy, legal uncertainty for researchers, as well as the difficulty of operationalizing this law for startups, prevent it from becoming a lever for development.
According to a 2025 study by CPI/PUC-Rio and Amazônia 2030, coordinated by Juliano Assunção and Beto Veríssimo, if the National Bioeconomy Development Plan (PNDBio), for example, is implemented seriously, it is estimated that up to US$784 billion could be generated in 30 years through carbon restoration via the RDM (Reversal of Deforestation Mechanism). The potential exists. What is lacking is functioning public policy.
Brazilian science , despite its challenges, conducts research, but licenses very little. In cases where such research attempts to move from academia to become businesses, it encounters difficulties.
One example of this is Pluricell Biotech, a pioneer in the field of regenerative medicine. Created in 2014 by researchers from USP (University of São Paulo), it spent almost a decade transforming academic research into cell therapies and ceased operations without raising enough capital to reach the market.
In 2019, it received US$1 million from the pharmaceutical company Libbs for its regenerative medicine program, and in 2021, another R$2 million from private investors. Despite scientific advances and partnerships, the resources were not enough to sustain the long product development cycle typical of the sector.
Brazil invests 1.19% of its GDP in research and development, far below the 4.9% and 3.45% invested by Israel and the USA, respectively. The brain drain persists as a structural variable, and "patient" capital—that is, capital willing to endure the long 5- to 15-year cycle that separates the laboratory from the market without demanding premature liquidity—remains scarce.
Funds such as SP Ventures, Pitanga, KPTL, and Fundepar are building a significant presence, but their aggregate volume is still far from what is needed to absorb the existing scientific pipeline.
This problem increasingly demands initiatives in Brazil that promote contact between Brazilian research and "patient" capital. Events with this objective are not uncommon in developed countries such as France, Finland, and the United States.
In Brazil, the Deep Tech Summit, created by Emerge at the Inova USP Complex, has gained scale and is gradually fulfilling this role. The next edition in August is expected to have around 2,500 participants, compared to only 450 people in 2023, making the event the third largest in the world focused on deep tech, behind only the Hello Tomorrow Global Summit in Amsterdam, which gathered 3,200 participants in its last edition, and the Deep Tech Momentum in Berlin, with 3,000.
A Brazilian event competing in this league is no accident. Fostering initiatives of this kind can be an indicator that it's possible to transform a Brazil that only produces science into a Brazil that converts science into economic value. Brazil has the scientists and the natural resources. What's missing is the chance to believe that we can generate moonshots.
Fersen Lambranho is co-chairman of the Board of Directors of GP Investimentos and chairman of the Board of Directors of G2D Investments.
