When you think about exports in Brazil, the first products that come to mind are commodities such as soy or animal proteins. But the Centria Partnersan M&A boutique specializing in technology and media, points to a new trend in the Brazilian market: the export of intellectual property.
“Brazil is a hub of new names, new intellectual properties that emerge every day, every moment”, says Patrick Cannell, partner and general director of Centria Partners. “There is a lot of foreign capital being allocated in Brazil, whether through strategic plans or funds.”
Of the more than 90 deals advised by the boutique, between 60% and 70% were complete company sales. And one thing reveals the size of the external appetite for what Brazil produces: 60% to 65% of these operations were cross-border transactions, according to the executive.
To understand what the Centria sees this change, it is worth starting with the reason why the boutique was created, around 15 years ago. “We were born to price what we often cannot put on a balance sheet”, explains Patrick, citing as an example intangible assets, such as technology and intellectual property.
He mentions the case of Netflixwhose most valuable asset is not its studios, but its catalogue. In other words, the intellectual property that the company owns and that generates revenue on a recurring basis around the world.
The same logic applies to the music market. When funds raise billions to acquire rights from artists, they are not purchasing equipment or physical structure. They are buying future royalties, that is, the right to be remunerated for that intellectual property each time it is reproduced in a stream, used in a commercial or licensed for any other purpose. “They are not buying a factory”, he summarizes. “This brings a component that is an asset with recurring, predictable cash flow that will appreciate in value over time.”
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Brazil has always been recognized for its creative capacity. But Patrick believes that the country is entering a more mature phase, not only generating culture and technology for domestic consumption, but structuring intellectual properties that attract global institutional capital.
“Brazil has a lot of creativity, it has an economy that often emerges from the informal and goes to the formal”, he says.
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A Centria operates in technology, with a relevant history in fintechs, and in media and entertainment – sectors that Patrick sees as the biggest value creation theses for the next decade. In technology, Brazil has already demonstrated that it is capable of creating solutions that compete globally, such as Nubank. In media and entertainment, the flow of new names and properties also remains intense, according to him.
“Everything that involves technology has a very strong appeal for international buyers”, he states. “Technology is more agnostic and not so related to the macroeconomic scenario, because it is a solution that people need.”
The M&A market in 2026
For Patrick, the scenario has been favorable for the mergers and acquisitions market, and the expectation is for 2026 to be better than 2025. “Brazil is a very strong economy, very large within Latin America as a whole and it is a destination that cannot be left out of capital allocation”, he says.
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One factor that contributes to this optimism is the cooling of the gap between the valuations that companies asked for and what buyers were willing to pay. On the other hand, Patrick states that the market has started to better price assets that were previously undervalued, such as scalable potential and the future value of technology, exactly the type of intangible asset in which Centria specialized.
Serving both strategic and investment funds, the Centria bet on relationships to do good business. To achieve this, the boutique developed an approach that it calls “copilot methodology”. Instead of joining the entrepreneur’s journey only at the time of sale, the house usually gets involved a year or two in advance to prepare the company for the transaction.
“We understand that there is often a classic dysfunction in the Brazilian market model, where you have a brilliant entrepreneur, but he is usually alone when negotiating with institutional capital”, explains Patrick. The work involves building a thesis, valuation, structuring the deal and closing gaps in governance and internal processes, ensuring that the company enters into negotiations with the correct structures, people and flows.
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“This is very linked to the word relationship”, concludes Patrick. “We have this relationship both with our customers and with the outside world to guarantee the best moment and the best possible operation for that entrepreneur, for that buyer, within that window.”
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