• CEO of Indulge Me: “We are eager to establish a branch in Dubai.”
  • CEO of Certillion: “We are participating in this exciting event to look for partnerships and investors that can help us grow and broaden our reach.”
  • CEO of GLED International Education: “Dubai is a very exciting destination for tech companies, and finding a local partner here will give us more opportunities to expand faster into regions we wouldn't be able to enter on our own.”

Dubai, UAE – Organised by Dubai World Trade Centre and hosted by Dubai Chamber of Digital Economy, Expand North Star 2024 has attracted the participation of a diverse range of Brazilian startups. The event’s Brazilian pavilion brings together 50 digital companies and startups, all of which are eager to leverage Dubai’s strategic location and competitive advantages to accelerate their global growth.

Brazilian companies participating in the exhibition emphasised Dubai’s growing significance as a global business destination and a gateway for overseas expansion.  The unique global event creates an ideal platform for companies from Brazil to showcase their digital innovations and explore partnership and funding opportunities with companies and investors from around the world.

Leonardo Braga, CEO of Brazilian travel tech startup Indulge Me, commented: “The unique thing about Expand North Star is that it truly unites East and West, offering diverse approaches and different perspectives of the world.”

Indulge Me gamifies experiences using augmented reality challenges and computer vision to create virtual treasure hunts. The company has a presence in nine countries across Asia and Europe and aims to make learning about cities more fun through geolocation. Indulge Me also has a no-code game development app to teach children how to build games, further enhancing the appeal of the featured destinations.

Braga says: “Expand North Star has greatly helped us in understanding how customer relationship building enhances our capabilities.” Indulge Me is currently evaluating the most suitable free zone in Dubai to set up its business.

As a second-time exhibitor at Expand North Star, the company is looking for an equity partner to set up in Dubai. “Last year, we started getting to know people, and for a year since we’ve been talking to these people and building relationships. There's something in people from Dubai that resonates with Brazilians. We are very emotional, energetic, and straight to the point.” said Braga.

Rodrigo Sodre is the CEO of Certillion, a startup focusing on fraud prevention through advanced digital signatures. Sodre commented: “We want to make our solution global. We are participating in this exciting event to look for partnerships and investors that can help us grow and broaden our reach.”

Sodre added: “We have two main goals here. First, we are reaching out to distributors to see if they have markets that are interested in our innovative solutions. Second, we're looking to connect investors.”

Mario Aguilar is the CEO of GLED International Education, an EdTech company that is exhibiting for the first time at Expand North Star. He said: “Dubai is a very exciting destination for tech companies. It's centrally located, very near Asia and Europe. We believe that finding a local partner here will give us more opportunities to expand faster into regions we wouldn't be able to enter on our own.”

GLED International Education, which develops learning management systems for children, is exploring internationalisation prospects at Expand North Star. “We are a small startup in Brazil helping kids improve their English in a country where 95% of our population doesn't speak English. We weren't thinking about internationalisation yet, but we received an invitation to Expand North Star. We have some meetings in the investor lounge, and we are hoping to pitch at Supernova tomorrow. It would be great if we can find a partner here and bring our technology to the MENA region over the next couple of years,” added Aguilar.

As a first-time exhibitor, Aguilar is highly impressed with the size and scale of Expand North Star: “Wow! I think it's fantastic. It's a very large and impressive event, which is unbelievable for international startups. It attracts different countries from around the world to showcase their ideas. I think it will be a great international exhibition for us over the next four days.”

As the world’s largest event for startups and investors, Expand North Star features over 1,800 exhibiting startups and more than 1,200 investors from over 100 countries with assets under management (AUM) exceeding US$ 1 trillion. The event runs from 13-16 October at Dubai Harbour.

To learn more about Expand North Star, please visit: www.expandnorthstar.com