Bruno Loreto is the head of operations at Construtech Ventures, the corporate venturing arm of Brazil-based SoftPlan Systems, which provides software solutions for three industries – legal, government, and construction and real estate.
Since its founding in 2016, Construtech has collected 11 portfolio companies, including ZeroDistrato, Vendo Meu Terreno, Coteaqui and Buildin. Loreto said: “The work we have done became a reference inside the company and now other units are considering replicating the same structure for different verticals.”
The unit’s portfolio companies generated 5% of parent SoftPlan’s annual revenue in the construction business unit in 2018, forecasting 12% for 2019 and aiming for 25% in 2025. Their main purpose is to solve problems relevant to the construction and real estate market.
Loreto said his ambition was to change the world by investing in innovation. Corporations were responsible for almost half of startup funding and most exits involved M&A operations, but the total amount of capital invested by corporations in CVC strategy was only a fraction of the total budget allocated to innovation. The unit was providing smart money to startups that learned from incumbents’ experience and Loreto said he wanted to continue this in a global context.
After Loreto completed an executive MBA degree in entrepreneurship and corporate innovation methodologies at Brazil-based business school Insper in 2015, he co-founded, along with four colleagues, a startup called BlueBaby, an internet-of-things platform for baby care. Although that endeavour was unsuccessful, he said he learned a lot from the experience.
