FAPESP commemorates 20 years of its Innovative Research in Small Business program

In two decades, the program has funded 1,788 research projects by 1,100 tech firms based in 127 cities in São Paulo State.

By Elton Alisson  |  Agência FAPESP – On June 29, FAPESP held a ceremony to celebrate 20 years of its Innovative Research in Small Business (PIPE) program, completed on June 18. In two decades, the program has supported 1,788 research projects conducted by 1,100 technology-based small firms located in 127 cities in São Paulo State, Brazil.

“PIPE combines technological innovation with meritocracy and has become the largest research funding program for startups in Brazil. In practice, it has created a huge aquarium where investors want to come fish, in the language used by the technical staff of BNDES, the national development bank, who visited us recently,” said FAPESP President José Goldemberg on opening the event.

PIPE has innovated in several ways, according to José Fernando Perez, who was FAPESP’s Scientific Director when the program was launched. “For one, it was the first Brazilian scientific research funding agency ever to award non-repayable grants directly to small firms to fund their research projects,” he said.

“Another innovative aspect of the program resides in its definition of the firm as the locus of innovation by establishing that projects must be developed in house by the firm’s own researchers.”

Perez went on to highlight yet another innovative aspect of PIPE: the requirement that every research project should result in a product, process or service with innovative potential.

In 1995, FAPESP launched the Research Partnership for Technological Innovation (PITE), which was followed two years later by PIPE, thus “consolidating an innovative culture within the institution that was then disseminated to other research funding agencies,” Perez said.

In 2006, for example, the Brazilian Innovation Agency (FINEP) launched its Corporate Research Support Program (PAPPE), which prioritizes research by high-tech small enterprises and operates in partnership with state research funding agencies (FAPs). In São Paulo State, FAPESP and FINEP signed an agreement to support PIPE’s Phase 3, which funds the commercialization of innovative products, processes and services.

Success cases

“The number of projects funded by PIPE has risen sharply since 2013,” said Carlos Henrique de Brito Cruz, FAPESP’s Scientific Director. “In 2016, for example, 240 projects were approved, and 225 were awarded funding, which corresponds to almost one project contracted for per business day.”

The projects supported by PIPE during the past two decades have resulted in the development of many technologies, created thousands of jobs, and dynamized the economies of the cities in which the firms are located.

Some of them have been presented in a video exhibited during the event, with testimonials by executives of five firms: I.Systems, Nexxto, Nanox, Altave, and Promip.

I.Systems was founded by four graduates of the University of Campinas (UNICAMP) with degrees in computer engineering and mathematics. It has developed systems control software based on fuzzy logic to increase the efficiency of production lines in large industrial firms (read more at agencia.fapesp.br/17230).

“The first proposal we submitted to PIPE was turned down, with four pages of suggested improvements, which helped us adjust the original idea and get to where we are now,” said Igor Bittencourt Santiago, CEO of I.Systems.

Nexxto developed a technology that can be used both to monitor and manage assets and to control the temperature and humidity of perishables in real time.

The firm now has a client portfolio comprising the companies Carrefour, Drogasil, BM&F and Ofner, among others, according to Antonio Carlos Rossini, an engineer who graduated from the University of São Paulo (POLI-USP) and is one of Nexxto’s founders.

Also with funding from PIPE, Nanox in São Carlos has developed silver-based microparticles with bactericidal, anti-microbial and self-sterilizing properties.

Today, the technology has been built into a wide range of products, including plastic utensils, PVC film for wrapping food, toilet seats, shoe insoles, hair dryers and flatirons, paints, resins, and ceramics as well as coatings for medical and dental instruments such as grippers, drills and scalpels.

The most recent application is in rigid plastic bottles used as packaging for grade A milk. The innovation has more than doubled the milk’s shelf life.

“This application was a world case study that aroused the interest of companies in more than 25 countries,” said Gustavo Pagotto, CEO of Nanox (read more at agencia.fapesp.br/21432).

Altave in São José dos Campos has developed lighter-than-air vehicles with multiple applications. Its high-tech tethered balloons can be used for border surveillance, telecommunications and broadband internet access.

At the 2016 Rio Olympics, the Brazilian Ministry of Justice’s Special Major Events Security Department used four balloons produced by Altave to monitor the main competition venues and their surroundings. 

“We’re an example of a company supported by successful public policies,” said Bruno Avena de Azevedo, one of Altave’s partners.

Promip has developed technology to produce predatory mites for biological pest control in agriculture, also with PIPE’s support.

Initially based in Piracicaba at ESALQTec, a business incubator run by the University of São Paulo’s Luiz de Queiroz College of Agriculture (ESALQ-USP), in 2009, Promip set up a biofactory at an experiment station in Engenheiro Coelho, a small town in metropolitan Campinas that is 170 km from São Paulo City.

Annual sales have now reached R$3 million. Every year, the firm sells 40 million mites used to treat 2,500 hectares of crops, such as tomatoes, strawberries and lettuce, which have been stigmatized because of the use of agrochemicals.

“PIPE has been fundamental for expansion of our research and development activities,” said Marcelo Polleti, Promip’s managing director.

Geographic distribution

Of all the projects supported by PIPE in the past 20 years, 1,668 were approved in the program’s first and second phases, focusing on proof of concept and product development, respectively, and 120 were approved under an agreement between FAPESP and FINEP to support commercialization via PAPPE. FAPESP invested a total of R$360 million in the first two phases of the program.

The projects funded by PIPE are in progress all over São Paulo State, but most are located in cities with good universities and research institutions, according to Brito Cruz.

“It’s natural that these projects should emerge where there are good universities and research institutions,” he said. “Technology-based innovation doesn’t appear out of the blue.”

Brito Cruz announced the 48 research projects selected as part of PIPE’s fourth cycle in 2016.

They include a project by BR Labs in São Carlos to develop a device that measures ocular biomechanical parameters, such as eye size, corneal curvature radius, and the distance between the cornea and crystalline lens, to aid in cataract surgery.

“Today, these measurements are made separately. We plan to make them simultaneously using a single device,” Jarbas Caiado de Castro Neto, a professor at the University of São Paulo’s São Carlos Physics Institute (IFSC-USP), told Agência FAPESP.

He took part in PIPE’s first call for proposals in 1997. Out of 80 proposals submitted, 32 were selected, including Opto Eletrônica, of which he is a founder.

“PIPE has been vitally important to the creation of tech firms in São Paulo State,” he said.

Other participants in the ceremony included João Carlos Meirelles, São Paulo State Secretary for Energy & Mining, representing Governor Geraldo Alckmin; Assemblyman Orlando Bolçone, who chairs São Paulo State Assembly’s Science, Technology, Innovation & Information Committee; Mauricio Juvenal, Chief of Staff in the Department of Economic Development, Science, Technology & Innovation; FAPESP Vice President Eduardo Moacyr Krieger; FAPESP CEO Carlos Américo Pacheco; and FAPESP Administrative Director Fernando Dias Menezes de Almeida.

“São Paulo is hugely proud of FAPESP, an agency that has the necessary independence but is totally committed to the state’s objectives,” Meirelles said.