Deco.cx triumphs as Web Summit Rio 2024 PITCH champion

Meet the winner of Web Summit Rio 2024’s PITCH, powered by the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation.

SaaS startup deco.cx has won Web Summit Rio 2024’s PITCH competition, powered by the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation. The Brazilian startup is headquartered in Rio de Janeiro. 

Co-founder Guilherme Rodrigues collected the prize on Center Stage at Riocentro, having won out over Canadian healthtech startup VoxCell BioInnovation, and Brazilian AI and machine learning startup Manycontent. 

Deco.cx is a software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform that allows users to build high-performance ecommerce platforms. Headquartered in Rio de Janeiro, deco.cx has employees based all over Brazil, including in Paraíba, São Paulo and Fortaleza.

“Winning the PITCH competition shows that a Brazilian company can address a global market and build a global product. Brazil is a giant market, but unfortunately that means lots of people assume that Brazilian companies can only serve the Brazilian market. And that’s what we’re out to prove – that it’s wrong; that we can serve global markets with a Brazilian platform,” said Guilherme Rodrigues, co-founder of deco.cx.

Guilherme and his co-founders Luciano Júnior and Rafael Crespo met while working at an ecommerce management company, before deciding to set up deco.cx in 2022. The company aims to build the largest multi-platform ecommerce community in the world, and is already backed by a community of more than 2,800 members. 

This is Guilherme, Luciano and Rafael’s second time attending Web Summit Rio with deco.cx, but this was their first time pitching the company on Center Stage.

“It’s great and nerve-wracking at the same time, especially talking on Center Stage. But it’s amazing to have so many people from all over the world here, and to get to know a lot of great people.”

PITCH, powered by Brazil’s Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation, is Web Summit Rio’s startup competition, which brings together some of the world’s most promising early-stage startups for a live onstage battle.

40 startups took part in the group stages of the PITCH competition, and eight startups competed in the semi-final. 

A judging panel comprising Brazil’s national secretary for technology and innovation at the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation, Guila Calheiros; Kaszek partner Santiago Fossatti; and Mundi Ventures investment director Rafaela Andrade selected deco.cx as the winner. 

1,066 startups from 42 countries attended Web Summit Rio 2024. A record 45 percent of these startups were women-founded – the highest proportion of any Web Summit event in the company’s global roster, and more than double the proportion of women-founded startups that were at Web Summit Rio last year. 

Main image of Guilherme Rodrigues and Rafael Crespo, co-founders of deco.cx