IMPA Tech and MSW Form a Partnership to Connect Students with Startups

IMPA Tech and MSW Capital, a venture capital firm, have formed a partnership to connect undergraduate students with startups in which the company has invested. The first step in this collaboration took place on Tuesday (7), with the event “From Knowledge to Innovation: How Do Successful Startups Get Started?”, organized by the Career and Internship Center (NCE).

“Building relationships with the business sector is a core principle of IMPA Tech. “The partnership with MSW and its startups paves the way for a fruitful collaboration capable of generating value for companies and enhancing student education, as well as providing professional opportunities for undergraduate graduates,” said IMPA Director-General Marcelo Viana.

The event brought together students, representatives from the management firm, and startups backed by MSW to discuss entrepreneurship, technological challenges, and the potential for applying scientific knowledge to solve market problems. The discussion was led by Viana, alongside MSW Capital CEO Moises Swirski and IMPA Tech’s skills development manager, Rafael Beraldo.

“We are building a bridge between two worlds that have long been separate. Today marks the laying of the first beam, and we will bring scientific excellence closer to companies capable of transforming society. The era of discovery has begun,” said Swirski.

Founded in 2000, MSW began its operations as a valuation and value management consulting firm. Starting in 2015, it began operating a startup investment model based on collaboration between shareholder companies and technology-based businesses with high growth potential and innovative solutions.

Startups Share Their Challenges and Experiences

Representatives from three companies in which the fund manager has invested participated in the meeting: Tidewise, Árvore , and iRancho, who shared their journeys, challenges, and experiences in entrepreneurship.

A Tidewise develops and operates intelligent robotic systems for maritime applications, using unmanned vessels in sectors such as energy, oil, and gas. “I founded Tidewise because I was dissatisfied with the way we treat the ocean. Unmanned vessels have many applications, and here in Brazil, we make extensive use of this technology in the energy, oil, and gas sectors,” explained CEO Rafael Coelho.

He also offered advice to students thinking about starting their own businesses. “A key step in entrepreneurship is validating the idea, to gather feedback and understand what works. Talking to outsiders and determining to what extent the ideas are economically viable are fundamental parts of the process. It’s a journey filled with a lot of pain and a lot of learning,” he said.

As for the Tree It is a digital reading platform geared toward schools and educational institutions. The software functions as a “Netflix for books,” according to CEO João Leal. “Árvore serves as the digital collection for school libraries, so the idea is to bring together children’s and young adult literature, cultural materials, and a repository of current events. We’ve organized ourselves to provide a large collection and engage young people in reading,” he said.

The platform also helps recommend books that are appropriate for the student’s reading level and personal tastes, creating a “match” between the reader and the book. Árvore uses gamification, and as students make progress in their reading, they cultivate a virtual forest.

Focused on agriculture and livestock, the iRancho It offers software for cattle ranch management. The app aims to streamline the daily routines of cattle ranchers and producers by providing a system that tracks livestock, manages the ranch, and makes the business more profitable. According to CEO Thiago Parente, the system serves more than 12,000 farms and manages more than 6.5 million animals.

“I’ve made it my life’s mission to bring technology to Brazil’s livestock industry. We face some additional challenges on farms, such as poor connectivity, users who struggle with technology, and substandard devices. We need to monitor cattle raising, ensure traceability, understand how the animals have developed, whether there have been changes in their weight, and so on,” he explained.

In his view, collaboration between universities and companies is essential for transforming knowledge into practical solutions. “IMPA Tech is a very conducive environment for cutting-edge learning. This collaboration is fundamental for connecting the private sector to the academic world. We still see very little of this in Brazil, but it is necessary to give practical application to the education of undergraduate students.”

The partnership is also expected to result in collaborative projects aimed at addressing challenges faced by startups, as well as the creation of internship opportunities for students.

“We want to create projects that align the challenges faced by companies with the skills students develop during their undergraduate studies. Some will pursue academic careers and others will enter the workforce, but everyone needs to understand how this knowledge can be applied to solve real-world problems,” said Beraldo.

For student Maria Fernanda Costa, the event was an opportunity to explore career possibilities in the job market. “Our degree program is very practical, so we can use math to solve real-world problems. This kind of discussion offers insight into entrepreneurship, highlighting the achievements and challenges faced by people who are successful today,” she said.