Web Summit Rio 2025 – My Highlights from Brazil’s Biggest Tech Event
I attend Web Summit in Lisbon every year — but in 2025, I swapped Lisbon for Rio. Here are my thoughts and impressions from Web Summit Rio.
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My Visit at WebSummit Rio 2025
Regular readers of MadeMeThink.xyz know I rarely miss a good tech conference 😉. One of the events I’ve attended most consistently over the years is WebSummit (see 2023, 2024). This year, however, I decided to skip Lisbon and head to WebSummit Rio instead.
Brazil holds a special place in my heart: I appreciate the country, the people, the language (yes, I speak some Portuguese), the cuisine, of course the weather, and - importantly - the entrepreneurial opportunities. With around 212 million inhabitants, Brazil is the world’s seventh-largest country by population and one of the most interesting emerging markets globally.
And yes, Brazil is absolutely worth a visit on its own - but Web Summit Rio was excellent as well. The event welcomed 34,552 attendees from 102 countries. Impressively, women made up over 45% of all participants. A total of 1,397 startups from 43 countries took part (46% of those were founded or co-founded by women). WebSummit Rio is now the largest tech event in Latin America.
The format mirrors what we know from Lisbon: top-tier speakers across multiple stages, daily rotating startups on a huge expo floor, curated networking events, and nightly social gatherings. In short: the successful Lisbon playbook works just as well in Rio.
As you might expect, AI dominated the agenda. One topic noticeably absent compared to other recent conferences was defense tech - a welcome change, at least for me. An interesting thought in relation to AI was presented by Marcio Aguiar (Executive Director at Nvidia), who outlined the development of AI: Perception AI -> Generative AI -> Agentic AI -> Phsyical AI. This reminded me of a statement made by Jürgen Schmidhuber at the StartSummit 2024: “The future of AI is going to be about real robots.” I’m genuinely curious when robots will have their “ChatGPT moment.”
On the expo floor, one trend was impossible to miss: AI-powered chatbots for business communication. That felt like the biggest start-up category. WhatsApp is the communication channel in Brazil - so dominant that nearly every local I met at WebSummit preferred to connect via WhatsApp rather than LinkedIn. So it’s no surprise that many startups now focus on AI-driven WhatsApp business solutions.
Maren Lau (Head of LATAM at Meta) highlighted the staggering scale of Meta’s messaging platforms: every day, over 600 million conversations take place between people and companies on their platforms. That number alone is mind-blowing, I hadn’t expected business chat activity on Meta’s platforms to be this high. It’s easy to imagine Meta launching its own AI business chatbot solution in the near future - potentially disrupting many of the startups currently filling that space.
The startup expo at WebSummit was a personal highlight. I love walking the halls, talking to founders, and discovering unexpected ideas. One such example: Rentbrella, an umbrella-rental platform. With over 1,300 stations in 100+ cities, they not only rent umbrellas but also use them as ad space for brand campaigns. Simple idea, solid execution, and a passionate team. I never thought I’d be impressed by an umbrella rental company, but here we are 😄.
Another standout was Guild, a startup developing hardware and software for small autonomous grocery stores - think Amazon Go, but without the smoke and mirrors. In my view, their concept is particularly relevant for Brazil, where private residential complexes (condominiums) are common - an ideal setting for autonomous self-service markets. But I could also imagine the concept in Europe, for example in rural areas where the last supermarkets have already disappeared.
At night, WebSummit becomes NightSummit. In Rio, that meant the organizers selected a lively street filled with bars and restaurants for attendees to gather. Back in the day, there used to be separate WebSummit events, which I personally found better, especially in Lisbon. But in Rio, the NightSummit worked really well and the proposed Night Summit areas were lively and attended by lots of WebSummit people.
At the WebSummit venue, there was always a get-together after the content part was over, with drinks and food trucks, which was always really nice and the Brazilians are relaxed and the atmosphere was laid-back.
A few impressions beyond the conference: Rio is a huge city. The WebSummit took place in Barra da Tijuca, an upscale and (for Rio) relatively safe area. The famous Copacabana is about an hour away, but absolutely worth a visit to soak in the city’s vibrant culture.
Fun fact: two days after I left, Lady Gaga held a free concert on Copacabana beach - attended by 2.1 million people. Honestly, I’m glad I missed that crowd 😄.
Also proud to say I put my Portuguese skills to the test! After 50K XP on Duolingo over the past year (mostly reading and writing), I was kind of surprised that I actually was able to do some basic conversations. That said, I’m doubling down now on my Portuguese skills: just booked a lesson with a native speaker on Preply. And hey — if you’re Brazilian and living in my region Vorarlberg, reach out! I’d love to practice more Portuguese in real life.
And finally - no trip to Rio is complete without a visit to Sugarloaf Mountain. I took the cable car up, but the best picture you get is from the rooftop bar of the Yoo2 Hilton Hotel. That was it, hope you like my WebSummit Rio review... and Rio, I'll be back :)
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Disclaimer: The thoughts published in this publication are my personal opinion and should not be considered as investment advice or a recommendation for any type of action. I am not a financial expert. The startups, organizations or corporates highlighted in this publication have caught my interest. This mention is not an endorsement or recommendation to engage with them. Readers should always do their own research.