May 2023 - Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
On the Web Summit, we joined several matchmaking sessions, organized by a dutch start-up matchmaking platform called uGlobally. Here we met Rodrigo Olmedo, the founder ofuGlobally. Thanks to Rodrigo, we came prepared as we could talk to several Brazilian companies. We stayed at the Sheraton hotel in Leblon, a beautiful hotel overlooking the famous Ipanema beach. The whole week, Hans Blankenburgh took great care of us and he and Rodrigo connected us to potential local partners and clients. We also met the Chief Representative Officers from the NBSO offices in Mexico and Argentina and by doing so, we learned more about the LATAM market. On the Web Summit itself, the Dutch government had a Dutch stent that we, together with other Dutch start and scale ups, joined.
We met some more interesting people like Maurits Stuyver from Vondel Venture Development. And through Hans we were introduced to Raphael and Bruno Zaroni, from Zaroni Advogados. We immediately had a trusted and deep conversation and Raphael told us that had worked together with Damsté Advocaten in Enschede, our hometown. Together, they have worked for several Dutch companies.
The energy we felt during our first trip to Brazil was mind-blowing and as a cherry on the cake, we had our first Brazilian picanha at ‘Garota de Ipanema’ restaurant. Rob knew the song ’The Girl From Ipanema’ by Astrud Gilberto and Stan Getz, after which the restaurant was named, from the past. With this song in mind and the carnivors that we are, we quickly knew: Hans’ phone call to Rob in 2023 brought us into a new adventure full of energy. Vámos lá!
