Brazilian venture capital has become accustomed to following the same model as North American venture capital that everyone already knows by heart: technology-based companies, with recurring revenue, scalable. And, more recently, AI-based, AI-native, AI-enabled. This choice tends to favor software companies, preferably B2B, and ends up leaving aside several other innovations, especially in hardware and sectors such as industry.
In a period of divestment, KPTL shows with its most recent exit, however, that there is also financial return beyond SaaS. The manager has just announced the sale of its stake in Lamiecco, a developer and manufacturer of laminated coatings, made from recycled PET, for the automotive, furniture and construction industries.
The operation, worth R$42 million, generated a return of 4.6 times the initial amount invested, which was R$9 million.
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The company was invested in by FIMA, a fund dedicated to technological innovation applied to the environment and created by BNDES at the beginning of the last decade. Of a total of 11 companies, the fund has already exited seven – and the sale of the stake in Lamiecco was the highest value so far.
“In Brazilian venture capital, there are a lot of things wrapped up in California, but the beauty is much more in ensuring the quality of innovation, with a good entry price, so that you have a good exit price opportunity, rather than just experiencing this thing of digitalization, of growth curves, of the unicorn. Real life is much more beautiful than these little boxes”, says Renato Ramalho, CEO of KPTL, in an interview with Startups.
Lamiecco was founded in 2007 in Montauri, in the interior of Rio Grande do Sul, and is today the largest circular economy company in its segment in Latin America, exporting around 10% of production to twelve markets. Last year, it had revenues of R$100 million. For 2026, the projection is R$150 million, and R$220 million for 2027.
KPTL entered the business in January 2014, when the company was already seven years old, had technical knowledge, but had cash flow and management difficulties. With the investment, governance tools also came: board of directors, audited balance sheet, more robust financial management. The company stopped burning cash, invested in R&D and set up what it now describes as the largest technology center in its sector. The industrial market, which accounted for 5% of revenue at the time, now represents 90%.
The exit did not follow the most common script. There was a group of investors interested in participating, but the founders themselves, Alexandre Figueiró and Cladir Roso, exercised their right of first refusal and kept 100% of the business. For Renato, this says a lot about the company’s health. “They could have gone home with the money in their pockets, but they preferred to stay in business”, he praises.
For the CEO of KPTL, the Lamiecco case reinforces an argument he has defended for a long time: the climate agenda needs to become a business. “If it doesn’t become a business, we won’t be able to take care of the plastics, the textile industry. Lamiecco is a good example of how it is possible to do profitable, large businesses, with good transactions based on the climate agenda.”
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In addition to being FIMA’s biggest exit, the Lamiecco deal was one of the biggest carried out by KPTL in the last five years. Among the most robust checks received by the manager in the period are those from the sale of Nanovetores, specialized in nanotechnology for the production of cosmetics and pharmaceuticals, in 2022, to the Swiss multinational Givaudan, with a return of 14 times, and Imeve, of probiotic additives for animal nutrition, with a return of 6.5 times, in 2021.
The manager currently has ten funds under management, with 70 invested companies, many of them mature, in the divestment phase.
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